“I remember what it was like. Don’t say that again.”
She sighed in acknowledgment. “Yes, I suppose you do.”
I thought she would continue. When she didn’t I took over. “Why do you need Wren?”
“We needed a child with potential in the Art. They aren’t so easy to find.” Her voice carried the barest trace of apology, but it was so light I might have imagined it. “We didn’t have time to look further afield.”
“And you knew snatching him would drive me after the Blade.”
“Yes.”
I tried to keep how I felt about what she was saying off my face, but I must have failed because her lips closed tight and she snapped at me. “Don’t look at me like that. I could have killed you, you know. I could have set the thing on you at any time or let you freeze in the snow.”
“You’re a peach.” It felt like something had burrowed its way into my brain, a spiny creature that had taken root. The only thing keeping me on my feet was too much breath, and I had to strain to hear Celia, so fierce was the din echoing through my ears. “What happened to you?”
“I appreciate what I’ve traded-I have no illusions. But I won’t let the Master’s work be in vain, I won’t let it go back to the way it was. Ten thousand mothers, twenty thousand fathers, dead stacked like walls, more than you can count in a week’s worth of counting. Summer after summer, year after year. I don’t expect you to forgive me, I can’t imagine anyone would-but come next summer the people of Low Town won’t rot like carrion in the sun.”
“I guess this high up it gets hard to see faces. Dig a child out of the mud and you might do your sums different.”
“I didn’t think you’d understand.”
“Maybe I’m not the altruist you are. I murdered men today-some of them didn’t deserve it.”
“People die,” she said, and there was no arguing that. “I did what I did-I had hoped you would never learn. But it’s too far along to stop it. I won’t let the sacrifices be in vain. I owe them that much. I won’t let anyone stop me, not even you. And you will try, won’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember that day before you left for the war?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember what you said to me?”
“Yes.”
“I guess you were wrong. I’m more like you than you thought.”
“No, Celia,” I said, holding up her necklace, the one she’d worn since I’d first met her, the one she’d used to bind her abomination to her soul, the one I’d snatched while she was saving my life a moment earlier. “You aren’t anything like me.”
Her hands flew to her neck. “How… how did you…”
“I’m taking Wren now,” I said, picking him up from the chair and throwing him over my shoulder. I kept the pendant between us. It seemed to squirm in my hand, and had an uncanny warmth.
“He’s fine, he isn’t infected, there’s nothing wrong with him,” she stuttered, her eyes doe wide and fixed on the bauble. “You need to put that down, you don’t understand what that is, you need to-”
I snapped the charm in half. “Too much blood, Celia-too much blood.”
The color drained from her face. A low whistling filled the air, and a gust of wind kicked open the shuttered windows. We stood staring at each other. She looked like she wanted to say something but didn’t.
Thank the Oathkeeper for what blessings he provides.
I felt it coming and stepped into the stairwell, my stomach clenching in terror. The thing congealed from the wall behind her, and she gave me one last look, her eyes mournful and condemning.
Not everything needs to be chronicled. Suffice to say after that things got pretty terrible.
I was sitting on the top of one of Kid Mac’s houses a few days later, a block or so from the Aerie, watching Rigus mourn the Blue Crane. His body, carefully preserved and dressed in his finest robes-the kind I had never once seen him wear-lay on a golden pedestal atop a small stage. Seated on the podium were the cream of the city’s business and aristocratic elite, a few dozen nobles the Master couldn’t have picked out of a lineup. The stage was surrounded with security, not the hoax either-military men with halberds at the ready, scanning the crowd for any signs of disturbance. Around this core virtually the entirety of Low Town had come to pay their final respects.
It was still bitterly cold, but it hadn’t snowed since that last night. What remained had turned to the unattractive mixture of sleet, dirt, and shit that characterizes a city snowdrift. Mac and I passed a joint back and forth, adding graphite-colored smoke to the already gray sky. This last batch of dreamvine had been particularly dull-if things didn’t improve I’d start looking for another wholesaler.
The Patriarch was praising the virtues of the deceased on the platform below-at least that was what I assumed was happening. My hearing hadn’t fully recovered, and between that and the low murmur of the crowd I was having difficulty making out the speech. Mac didn’t seem impressed. I doubted I was missing much of substance.
“You knew him, right?” Mac asked. Behind us a couple of his whores were smoking cigarettes and sobbing quietly, happy for the opportunity to indulge their innate sense of melodrama.
“Yeah.”
“What was he like?”
“He was fairly tall,” I said.
Yancey was down there somewhere, surrounded by the sweaty assemblage that had filtered in for the ceremony. I called him back from hiding after it was all over. He said we were square, but I didn’t think he meant it. Regardless, he had been right about what he said that day on the roof-it would be a long time before I’d be invited back for lunch at Ma Dukes’s.
In retrospect I didn’t think the Blade would have gone so far as to hurt him. I had misread Beaconfield. I had misread a lot of people. The Old Man cleaned up the mess, and if he knew I’d gotten the wrong man he didn’t care, filing it away to use against me should the situation warrant. As far as he was concerned, the whole thing had wrapped up neatly enough. The murders in Low Town stopped and a famed but irrelevant member of the peerage had an unfortunate accident with his furnace. The Duke of Beaconfield was the last of his line, and in contrast to the glittering soiree only a few days prior, his funeral was sparsely attended. For all his celebrity he was not well loved, and outside of his creditors few mourned his loss.
Wren lounged against the railing. If it had been up to him, he’d be down there with the rest of the city, but ever since his return Adeline had been wary about leaving him unattended. If he remembered anything about being taken, or his time spent under Brightfellow’s spell, he never mentioned it to me. He was a tough little runt. He’d be all right.
I wasn’t so sure about Low Town. There had been talk of turning the Aerie into a free clinic, but we’d see how that went. The Crane had no family, and with Celia gone there was no one left to look after his estate. It was hard to imagine the government would dispose of his property in a fashion advantageous to the general population. Either way, Low Town would miss its protector.
As far as the wards went-we’d have to wait till summer to see what would happen. Not every year had brought the plague, and the city’s medical care and sanitation had improved since the epidemic that had orphaned me.
But some nights the dreamvine wasn’t enough and I’d wake up screaming in a sweat, thinking about the carts they’d sent to collect the dead, one-man traps piled high with rotting flesh. Nights like that, I’d nip a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard, sit by the fire, and drink until I couldn’t remember why I started. There wasn’t much else to do.
“I’m gonna head back,” I said. Mac nodded and turned to watch the proceedings. Wren looked up as I passed. “If I let you out of my sight, do you promise not to get killed?”
He laughed and sprinted downstairs. He’d be all right. Later, when I thought he was old enough, I’d get him the training his talents required. But not at the academy-he’d never have some government worm whispering counse
l into his ear. There were still practitioners out there unaffiliated with the Crown, I’d find one.
The walk back seemed longer than usual, and not just because my boots were soaked through with slush. There wouldn’t be much call for me to come back to the Aerie, not anymore. My days of navigating that stone labyrinth were over. It would have been better for everyone if they hadn’t started up again.
The Earl was slow when I came in, Adeline preparing for the dinner rush and Adolphus leaning against the bar, roots going down through the cellar, a tired smile on his face. He waved at me and I waved back. Neither of us said anything.
I took a seat at a back table, and Adolphus came over with a pint of stout. I waited for the bar to fill up, pulling from my drink until it was gone. It didn’t help much, but I called for another one anyway.
Daniel Polansky was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He holds a B.A. in philosophy from Dickinson College. Low Town is his first novel.
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Document creation date: 10.10.2011
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Low Town lt-1 Page 31
