Then, tok! There it was again.
She got up off her mattress, pulling the covers back behind her, and opened the door. There was barely enough light to see by in the corridor, just a weird glow from some of the machines downstairs that had electric gauges that stayed on all night. As far as she could tell, there was nobody there.
She stepped out into the corridor, treading carefully so as not to wake Crome in the room across the way. Then she found out what had been making that noise – with her foot. She trod on a small stone in the dark, and as she was pulling back, another one nipped her ankle. She hissed and clapped her hand over it. A shape downstairs winced apologetically.
He’s not much of a murderer if he can’t even hit me on purpose. She crept the rest of the way downstairs, and the figure that had been lurking there stepped into the light of one of the machines. Mechanic Lenk.
“Look what you did!” she said, and pointed to her ankle, where blood was starting to soak through the sock. “What are you doing here? How did you get in? I sure hope this is something important!”
The mechanic looked chagrined. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I was trying to wake you without waking the Laundryman. I have something dreadfully important to tell you.”
She put her hands on her hips, still furious at him. Lenk, who had just decided he was going to vote for Nelin and not Chairman Grendel in the election. He had a lot of nerve coming in here to tell her about anything! But the Mechanic looked like he had just seen a ghost. By degrees her anger was replaced by a terrible doubt.
“I just got back from … a Striker meeting.” He put his hand up. “No, don’t, Grizelda, I don’t want to talk about that right now. The thing is I heard something that the goblins may not let you know about.”
He paused, as if getting himself ready for what came next. “Good God, Grizelda, if Nelin gets elected in January, he plans to have you retried and executed!”
The news made her stumble a little. She found an even space on one of the machines and sat down.
Mechanic Lenk crouched by her, worried. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Do about it? I can’t do anything about it! I’m the ogre seamstress!” She looked up at him, feeling suddenly helpless. “Mechanic, how can you be with them?”
“Well, if I leave now, they’re going to know something’s up!”
“You’ve got to help me, Lenk.”
“What can I do? I’m a scientist. I give people advice. I can’t get involved in this sort of thing.”
“Are you afraid that you won’t be safe? That Nelin and his gang will go after you, too?”
“That’s not it at all,” he said, with a look that meant that was exactly it. “Really, Grizelda, my hands are tied. Doing something now would be disastrous. It wouldn’t help.”
“Do something?” Grizelda glared at him. “Mechanic, how have the ratrider attacks been the last few days?”
He was confused. “There’s … hardly been anything for days. But what does that have to do with–”
“You figure out why,” Grizelda said. “Now go away.”
Mr. Bavar had been ill at ease ever since he had received the letter with the hammer, scroll, and sword seal on it. Industry, scholarship, and unity. The post was banned to goblins, but the goblin-king, or chairman, or whatever they were calling them these days, had his channels. Bavar, of all people, should know that.
He’d found it in his desk when he sat down to work that morning in the Warden’s office. Afraid to open it up and read it when Mr. Mant might come walking in any moment, he stuffed it into the inside pocket of his vest and spent most of the day carrying it around that way. That night, he waited until Marissa was asleep, then crept out of their little bedroom and took the letter to the kitchen. He lit a lamp, then turned it down low enough that it gave out barely enough light to read by.
Dear Mr. Lars Bavar:
It has come to my attention that the political situation topside is deteriorating again. Even at the best of times the Union has not gotten along with the present government as well as we had with the Aukish monarchy, but conditions now are looking serious. In these uncertain times, I thought it was appropriate to remind you of our agreement.
How could Bavar forget? He thought about it every day. He’d been a stripling of an office clerk at twenty-one, barely out of school, barely able to make enough money to survive. He’d had no credentials whatsoever. When the secretary job opened up at Promontory, the offer of a forged letter of recommendation was too good to pass up.
In return, he would have to do the goblin-king a favor some day; the time or the place was unspecified. Whenever or wherever Grendel chose to call it in.
The time may be coming soon for you to hold up your end of the bargain.
Chairman Grendel
The People’s Goblin Union of Lonnes
Bavar realized his hands were shaking. Carefully he fed the letter to the lantern until nothing was left. Then he put out the light.
Chapter 16
It started with a pickpocket. A street urchin materialized out of an alley somewhere at the juncture between Liberty District and South District. He was a boy of about eleven, with dirty clothes and black hair that stuck up every which-a-way. He slid up to a well-to-do lady walking alone and bumped into her.
“Sorry,” he muttered, and ran off.
The lady started screaming at the top of her lungs. She didn’t run after the boy, she just pointed at him and screamed. Soon the people around her saw what was wrong – the boy, picking up speed now, had a purse clutched in his hand.
Joey Phillips was a new gendarme recruit, barely out of training and eager to prove himself. He had a head full of patriotic ideas about the new Republic and his gun rested awkwardly in his hands. He still got pimples. He’d been pretending to lean casually against a wall on the corner where he was stationed, keeping an eye on the citizens. When he heard the screaming, he shouted in what he hoped was an authoritative way and ran in pursuit.
The urchin looked back, but only for an instant. He was flying down the street. But Joey, with his longer legs, was catching up to him. In a crash, he had the boy against a wall and was wrestling with him, trying to get him pinioned. The boy was stronger than he looked, and it was a hard fight. He tried to buck the gendarme and doubled over. Snick! Out of nowhere, there was a knife in the kid’s hand, six inches long and wicked.
Joey panicked. The gun was fired before he even thought about it. The boy jerked, then slid limply out of his arms.
Joey looked up and realized that a crowd of citizens had gathered around them.
“Sir?”
The gendarme who stepped into Mant’s office looked pale. Mant recognized him – it was that guy Whatshisname, the one who had first discovered the missing prisoner. Could it really have been only a week or so ago? Instead of risking using the wrong name on the man, Mant made a gesture that meant he had permission to speak.
“It’s one of our own, sir. He’s been torn to pieces by a mob.”
Mant spilled his coffee. “What? When did this happen?”
“It was a new recruit by the name of Phillips. He was on patrol in the South District area. We can’t get a straight answer from the citizens why they did it.”
“Literally torn to pieces?”
The gendarme looked like one trapped in a nightmare. “No, sir. One of the citizens in the crowd was a cobbler. He … went back home and … got his tools …” He stopped, unable to continue.
Mant waited for the man to compose himself.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “He– I knew Phillips.”
Anderson. That was his name.
“Anderson,” said Mant. “Maybe you should take the rest of the day off.”
Anderson nodded, silent. Then something occurred to Mant.
“Wait. Before you go, tell Lieutenant Calding to come in here.”
When Calding came in, Mant asked the secretary Bavar to leave. His secretary, who had been o
ddly preoccupied today, got up and left the room without saying a word. As soon as they were alone Mant turned his attention to the lieutenant.
“I don’t know, Mr. Calding, if you’ve heard about the killing yet. It was one of our own.”
“I – no, sir. I didn’t.” As usual, Mant had to wonder whether the look of surprise on the lieutenant’s face was feigned or real.
“I don’t know all the details yet. I don’t need to tell you that this has serious implications for the prison. The timing could not be worse, with the Committee of Public Safety coming in for its annual evaluation the day after tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.” There was a question in Calding’s eyes, but he was acting too polite to ask it.
Damn, the man was good at his job. So organized. Terrific actor. That was what had Mant worried.
Time for the hard part, now. “I need to know I have your full support in this,” Mant said.
The faintest intake of breath, stifled shock. “Warden, you’re my ranking officer–”
“I know,” Mant said. “Probably you’re wholeheartedly in support of the way I run this prison. If you are, everything’s fine. But whatever it is you privately think, I need you to have my back these next few weeks.”
“Of course, sir.”
Mant could only hope he was serious.
A red band. A red band on Laundryman Crome. Grizelda rubbed her eyes, thinking somehow they were failing her. She’d just gotten up, bleary from her middle-of-the-night conference with the Mechanic, and on the stairs she’d caught sight of Crome, who was already up and about. The red band hung slackly around his bad arm. When he saw her looking at him he turned defensively.
“I know what you’re about to say, and don’t you even think about it!” he warned her.
Well, she sure didn’t know what she was about to say. She decided she didn’t want to deal with it right then.
But what she saw on the streets made her wake up quickly. All the goblins, not just the Strikers now, had bands. The ones who didn’t have green ones yesterday were wearing red ones today. It was like a bizarre Christmas parade, though somehow Grizelda didn’t see goblins getting into the Christmas spirit. More important, all the goblins, both red and green, seemed to be taking greater interest in her than before. Instead of shunning her as usual, they watched her keenly, as if to see what her next move would be. Some even made half-joking attempts to follow her. She quickened her pace to the cafeteria.
But her vexation did not stop there. The goblin equivalent of a titter went up as she entered the room. Heads turned.
Here we go again.
Before she had gotten more than a few paces inside, someone tapped her on the shoulder.
“We want to know where your band is,” said the goblin. She noticed he was one of the green-banded ones. “We thought you were a Loyalist.”
“Oh, is that what they mean?” She tried to push past him to the oatmeal line, but another green-banded goblin caught her by the shoulder.
“You haven’t answered our question yet. Why don’t you get a red band for the ogre-loving Chairman?”
“I don’t want a stupid band!”
“Ooh.” The two goblins looked at each other meaningfully. They were a couple of Nelin’s cronies, clearly. Bunch of scumbags.
“Don’t tell me you’re a Striker,” the first one said.
“An ogre Striker!” There were several snickers from the crowd. Everybody in the cafeteria was watching her now.
“Girl, if you had any idea what Nelin had in store for you–”
All at once she curled her lip and snarled at them. They stumbled back, a little surprised at her ferocity. A change went through the air, as if the goblins eating breakfast realized for the first time that she stood head and shoulders taller than anybody else in the room. With a new-found timidity, the two Strikers allowed her to pass.
That day was difficult for Grizelda. After a few hours, the goblins got over their fear of her somewhat and started following her around, clawing at the air and making snarling noises at her. When she fixed them with a hard look, they would usually stop. She had almost preferred it when they ignored her. It was some consolation when she saw Lenk walking glumly by at lunchtime with no band at all, but not much.
So Lenk didn’t have the guts to stand up for her. All right. She was tired of lying here hiding with the goblins. She was going to do something.
Lenk had told her to be careful. She didn’t owe him anything.
Near the end of the workday, she checked that the coast was clear, then whispered, “Kricker? Are you there?”
And then somehow Kricker was there sitting on top of her sewing machine. He waved to her.
“Hey, Grizzy!”
“Have you really been following me all day?” she said. Up until then, she hadn’t really believed it. Was he invisible? She’d been looking over her shoulder all day, but hadn’t seen a hair of him.
“Yeah. Didn’t see any sign of a bloke following you, though.”
It was true, she realized. She hadn’t seen a sign of the spy all day, but had been too absorbed with Loyalists and Strikers to notice. For a moment Grizelda stopped and chewed her lip, overcome by a bad feeling. But if her pursuer was planning something, there was nothing she could do about it.
“Look, Kricker, I need to go somewhere by myself tonight.”
She looked at him, hoping for his approval, but she didn’t get any. He was scowling.
“Kricker, this is really important,” she pleaded. “And if I go there with a ratrider … I could get in a lot of trouble.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
A staring contest followed, but neither of them could get the upper hand.
“You can’t stop me,” Kricker said finally. “Heck, most of the time you can’t even see me. If I wanted to tag along, you wouldn’t even know it.”
That was it, then. Kricker was coming whether she liked it or not. Fine. He wasn’t stopping her.
“Just please, make sure nobody sees you,” she said.
Chapter 17
“How are you doing that?”
Grizelda and Kricker were deep in the tunnels outside of goblin town by this point. Kricker’s ratrider light lit the way for them, bobbing up and down with the movement of his rat as it scuttled alongside her ankles. Grizelda was trying to retrace her steps the way she had come three days ago, to the connection with the Lonnes sewers. She hoped she could remember it.
“Doing what?” said Kricker.
“Every time I look at you, you’re somewhere else!” she cried in exasperation. “The other ratriders keep doing it, too.”
“Oh. Yeah.” Kricker made a half-embarrassed smile. “We’re skleining. We ratriders can sort of drop in wherever we want.”
“How is that different from teleporting?”
Kricker thought about that for a while. “’Cause it matters whether you’re looking or not.” He paused. “No, that’s not quite it. It’s more like, you’re not really somewhere until someone’s looking. That’s not really it either, though.” He scratched his head. “It’s kind of hard to explain.”
“Oh.” The idea made her feel kind of funny. She was quiet for a while, trying to work it out. Meanwhile, she was relieved to find the place with the pipe sticking out of the wall and the channel below it. She walked past it, speeding up as they started to go uphill.
“Whoa, hey, Grizzy! Where are we going?” Kricker spurred his rat to keep up with her.
If you have to know, we’re going to the surface,” she said grimly.
“You’re crazy! It’s all right for me, I know how to keep from being seen when I’m out on a raid. You’re going to get smooshed!”
“You can’t stop me,” Grizelda said.
Kricker couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so reluctantly he followed her. Without any trouble, they got to the place where she had run into the boy Toby two days before. It looked different at night, harsh under the strange green of Kricker
’s ratrider lamp and a little light bleeding in from the street above. Grizelda hung a left, preoccupied. She needed to find a way to Rue de Calle without being seen. She was pretty sure she could do it the same way she had helped Toby to escape, by following the major streets underground.
There was still plenty of traffic at this hour, and she could feel the grinding of wheels and pound of horses’ hooves going over her head as she went. When she thought she was about halfway there she stopped and pulled a square of cloth from her bodice pocket. She’d cut it from some scrap that the laundry didn’t need anymore. She tied it around her head, tucking under the strands of hair at her temples until not one bit showed. She turned to Kricker.
“How do I look?”
Kricker didn’t say anything; he just gave her another dark look.
A little while later, when she thought she must be under the alley behind Rue de Calle, she snuck a quick look out of the storm drain. It was an alley, all right, and it was deserted. Getting out of the drain in her skirt was difficult, but after a couple of tries, she managed it.
A wave of dizziness came over her. Nothing over her head but big, black sky, a smooth dome sliced in places by the rooftops. She sat and stared up at it. How long? How long had it been since she’d been without some ceiling of stone?
The thin layer of half-melted snow on the pavement started wicking its way through her coat and shoes. She got up, shivering. It must have been December by now on the surface. Her clothes, the same ones she’d thrown on that dreadful night of the gendarmes, weren’t made for winter weather, not even Corvain’s mild winters.
All the way down the alley the back ends of buildings sat in a row, each one much like its neighbors. Piles of broken-down crates and broken bottles clustered around back doors sunk in from the street. She was about to despair of figuring out which one was the Trebuchet when the wind carried a burst of drunken laughter in from the street. She turned to the place it had come from, Kricker following along.
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