Dead of Veridon

by Tim Akers

  "We know Crane is working with Tomb. We know that he is somehow connected with a Rite of Purge, and that a lot of the abilities he's demonstrated align with your father's sudden case of madness." He drank, then slid his mug slowly around the table, making patterns in the condensation. "And Crane took the time to hire you for a job that was probably going to get you killed."

  "I don't like where you're going with this," I muttered.

  "I'm not going anywhere with it. I'm just laying out some facts."

  "You're implying that a Rite of Purge has been written out with the Burn name on it."

  "I'm not sure that I am," he said. "Although that is a possibility. From what your father described, though, it doesn't sound like the kind of thing the Council would enact. Unless your family has done something heinous that we're just not aware of."

  I leaned back in my chair and rubbed my face. "You never know. Dad likes his secret plans."

  "Let's discount that for a moment. This Rite of Purge thing seems pretty extreme, even for Angela Tomb. I don't think she'd take the time to bring it in front of the full Council. If she was serious about snuffing out the Burn name, I mean... there are really only two of you left. Your mother's not going to contest the Right, your siblings are dead or married. Honestly, you didn't really count toward the total until your father reinstated you."

  "Maybe that's why he did it," I said. "He's worried Angela is trying to get him out of the way, so he brought me back into the family. Putting the crosshairs on my head would force my involvement. Force them to act against me, and me to react against them. That'd be typical of him."

  "Doesn't explain the purge mask, though," Wilson said.

  I shrugged. It did seem a little theatrical for Angela's style. She was much more the type to just pull out a pistol and shoot you in the chest, without preamble or warning. Which was also the problem with Crane's theoretical role in Alexander's madness. If the Tombs wanted Alexander dead, they would shoot him. Unless they needed to discredit him first. I really needed to know more about what was going on in the Council.

  "What about this Bright girl?" I asked. "What do you know about her?"

  "Not much. They're a recent addition to the Council. Her father has very diversified interests. One of which, curiously, is not the Council. It was her brother that worked to get them a seat in the chamber. And as far as I know, he's the one who sits it. Aaron, his name is, I think. She acts as his second."

  "I take it they hate all Founders, everywhere, and would do everything in their power to bring us down?"

  "Beats me." Wilson finished his beer then carefully turned the mug on its head and rested his hands on top of it. "But it sure seems she has no love for the Tombs. Maybe she'd talk to you. Tell me," he said, looking around the bar. "Does this all seem strange to you?"

  I finished my beer and pushed the glass away. It left a wet trail on the table, like a slug.

  "Does what seem strange to me?"

  "This crowd. What is tonight, Tuesday? Tuesday's not usually a big drinking night."

  I put a hand on the girl's wrist when she brought me the next round. She stiffened, but met my eyes.

  "What's with all the people?" I asked. She answered, but it was too quiet for me to hear. I gave her a tug, until she bent close.

  "They're coming for you," she groaned. Voice like a graveyard cracking open, rattling up from the deep parts of her chest.

  "What?" I asked, squeezing hard. Wilson squinted at me and leaned in to listen. The girl blinked and looked at me like I was an idiot.

  "I said, people are cutting loose before the curfew. Council's shutting the city down tomorrow. Some kind of Badge thing."

  "First I've heard of it," I said. "I've never known them to shut down the whole city."

  "Not since the red fever came through here," Wilson said, looking mournfully at his upturned mug. "It's pretty strange."

  "Anyway," the barmaid fluttered her eyes at me. "Much as I enjoy being held by such a fine gentleman, I do have other tables."

  "I really doubt you've been held by many gentlemen," I muttered.

  She gave me a look, then twisted her arm free and slapped her palm flat across my cheek before stalking away.

  "What was that about?" Wilson asked, eyes twinkling.

  "Nothing," I said. "Let's get out of here."

  "Aren't you going to finish your beer?" he asked.

  "Nope."

  "Aren't you going to pay for the beers you finished?"

  "Nope."

  "Woo, it's a party! We're on a tear!" Wilson jumped up and slapped me on the back. "Skipping out on checks and walking out on your father. Next thing we'll be beating up kids for their allowance!"

  "What the hell has gotten into you?" I snapped.

  "I'm just glad to see you making mistakes again. You're more fun when you make mistakes." He grabbed me by the shoulder with his iron-hard fingers and kept me from walking away from him. "Seriously. What'd the bitch say the first time? I thought your face was going to fall off."

  "I don't know what she said," I answered, looking nervously around the room. "But someone made a threat, through her. A threat or a warning."

  Wilson's smile broke, but only for a moment. He looked for the barmaid, but couldn't find her. Without another word he started pushing for the front door.

  "Did she look like she had cogwork?" he asked.

  "She looked like she had great tits. That's as far as I got."

  "You're not helpful," he hissed.

  "I thought I was more fun when I made mistakes."

  "That has its limits. Let's get somewhere quieter and..."

  The sirens started. Out in the streets, the drunken crowd gave a whoop and a holler, and then gunfire sprinkled the air and people started screaming. We stopped talking, and just ran.

  Chapter Ten

  Needing a Hero

  THIS IS WHAT I wanted to do; what I was going to do. I wanted to run as far from this bullshit as modern transportation would take me. Grew up the pawn of my old man, played the game according to his rules, according to the rules of this little society we had formed on this godscursed river. And he played me, betrayed me, cut me off. Everything that man had ever done was meant to shape me into a tool for his name. And when I broke, when the tool fell clattering to the floor of his shop, he cast me aside and went looking for someone else.

  And now he had no one else, and he was coming back to me. Reinstating me into the family would only do one thing, it would get me killed. So here I was, dragged back into the chaos of Council politics, into the backstabbing and the plotting. Into the game. And I was done playing.

  Somewhere outside of Veridon there was a morning where I could wake up and not worry about whether my name was about to get me killed. There was a town that had never heard of the family Burn, never heard of the wastrel of a son who disappointed his scheming father. There was a place where I was a nobody, worth nothing. Not worth killing. I was going to find that place. Now.

  To hell with this place. To hell with Veridon.

  OUTSIDE, IT WAS like a festival. The street was stuffed with people, some of them screaming, some of them laughing. All of them drunk. The gunfire was distant, the sirens howling over the crowd like a trumpet call. The air was crackling with a hot spring breeze. Flares had gone up, lining the clouds of an early season storm in unnatural pinks and reds. Lightning shuddered across the sky. Wilson was still smiling.

  There was a line of officers of the Badge moving down the street, steadily compacting the revelers into tighter and tighter quarters. The gunshots came from them, firing their shortrifles into the air as they proceeded. Wilson and I went with the flow of traffic, rippling in the other direction. It felt as if we were being herded.

  "So, whatever ghost voice talked to you through the girl," Wilson yelled into my ear - it was hard to hear anything over the crowd and the sirens - "do you think it was the Badge they were warning you about?"

  "Nope," I answered. My shoulders were h
unched tight under my jacket. I was getting pressed from all sides.

  "Me neither," Wilson said. "Because it's pretty obvious that they're coming. Don't need to be warned away from that ruckus. Which leaves us with the interesting question."

  "Which is?"

  Wilson looked around at the crowd, then back to me.

  "What's the real threat, and where are they?" He muscled an arm free of the press and used it to clear some space around us. "And how long before they stab us in the back, among all these idiots?"

  "That's not a very interesting question," I said. "At least, I'm not interested in it."

  "You're not?" He gave me a quizzical look. "Feeling suicidal?"

  "No. I'm feeling finished." I pushed to the side of the crowd, against one of the walls. The shop behind me had been boarded up, in eerily accurate anticipation of the riot. The keep had clearly seen this kind of weather in the air before. I stood with my back against the boards, watching the Badge get closer. Wilson fought his way next to me and stared into my face.

  "Finished? Just like that? You're giving up."

  "I'm just getting out, Wilson. I'm sick of this. Sick of my father."

  "Oh, your father," he nodded. "That's what this is about. That's all you care about, isn't it?"

  "You're missing the point, buddy. That's all I don't care about. I'd like to keep myself alive, and I'd like him to stop getting in the way of that." The crowd was getting awfully tight. Wilson was pushed right up against me. I could feel the brace of knives in his vest, poking me in the ribs. "I tried doing it in the city. Stayed low. Got forgotten. And that worked for a while. Now it seems to have stopped working."

  "Don't give me that shit, Jacob." He bared his hundred teeth at me, biting off each word with a snap. "He would have taken you back, but you didn't give him the chance. You took the path that went through every bar in Veridon, and half the whores. I know, Jacob, because I followed you through that path. That's what friends do."

  "We're friends now? I thought you were waiting for me to start making mistakes again. Because it amuses you."

  He shook his long, bald head at me and spat. The line of Badge was getting close. Wilson noticed and pushed me aside, then began prying off the boards on the shop door.

  "So what's your plan, genius? Get arrested again?" He snapped a board in half and began working on the lock beneath. "Because that's what's going to happen if you don't get moving."

  "Doesn't sound like a bad idea. Settle into a nice cell until this blows over."

  "You think they're going to let you do that? Angela's already sprung you once. Who knows what would come for you this time!" The lock snapped open, and Wilson pulled the door wide, tearing the boards from the frame as he pulled. So it wasn't the best barricade job. The shopkeeper hadn't matched his prescience with good carpentry. You can't have everything. Wilson stood in the door, staring down at me.

  "Stay out here and get arrested, or come through here with me. But if you follow me, by gods, you have to fight with me."

  "What makes you so all-fire righteous all of a sudden, Wilson?" I demanded. "You can't tell me that you honestly care about what happens in the Council. Or to my father, for that matter."

  He laughed.

  "Don't care? It's all I care about, Jacob. You can go traipsing off into some pastoral fantasy about milkmaids and sleeping in and maybe doing a little fishing," he snarled, making the word 'milkmaids' sound particularly vicious. "But some of us are stuck here. Some of us can't drop everything and disappear."

  "That's not my fault. That's not my responsibility. And what the hell is keeping you here, anyway? Not like you've got family obligations."

  There was murder in his eyes. I had always been afraid of his teeth, and his iron hard fingers, and those knives, and the sharp talons of his spider hands. I added his eyes to the list.

  "Oi, you there! You lads!" shouted one of the officers. "We'd like a word with you, if you have the time." As if we were standing in the street, loitering. Not in the middle of a riot.

  Wilson stepped inside the shop, gave me a significant look. I shrugged and brushed past him, further into the darkness within. He turned to the line of officers who were struggling to get closer.

  "I will thank you kind gentleman to do something about this rabble," Wilson shouted back. "I am a respectable citizen of the city, and the proprietor of this fine shop. Please remove these people from my doorstep and see that nothing is damaged. I have some very fine" - he paused to look around at the shelves nearest him - "some very fine pottery that must be protected at all costs. And what appears to be a hookah... never mind, thank you for your time."

  And he slammed the door and threw the bolt, and then whirled on me.

  "Let's say that it's not me who's stuck here. You clearly care nothing for me, or my feelings, so let's imagine it's someone else. Anyone else. What would have happened if you hadn't stepped up two years ago, huh? What would have happened to the city?"

  "Maybe that was a mistake. Maybe I should have let Camilla have her heart back, and let the chips fall where they may."

  "Really?" He stalked closer to me, backing me up against the very fine pottery. "Really, Jacob? You don't care that she would have burned a hole through this city a mile wide and two deep? All the people who would have died, all the tomorrows that would have been lost; that doesn't matter to you at all?"

  "Maybe it doesn't matter to me anymore." I pushed him back a little, enough to get my footing. "Maybe I didn't do as much good as you think. Things could have turned out differently. Things could have turned out better."

  "For who, Jacob? For you? For the Council? Who would be better off now, if you hadn't done what you did?"

  And there it was, hanging between us in the air, the name neither of us would say. Would either of us dare play that name; did we care about this argument enough to tear open that wound?

  Emily. Emily would be better off. But I couldn't say that. Couldn't even think it.

  I retreated to the back of the shop, looking for another door. People were pounding on the bolted front of the shop, Badgemen or crushed rioters or maybe even the cogdead. Who could tell anymore? The silence and that name hung in the air like a thunderbolt.

  "I don't know what good I did back then, Wilson, but I know what evil. I know how many men I've killed. How many women." I found a door and started fiddling with the lock. "I know how many lives I've ruined, how many bones I've crushed. Both for Valentine, and later for myself."

  "But think about how many more would have died, Jacob." Wilson came over and put a hand on the door. Didn't matter. I couldn't get the damn lock to budge, anyway. "And how many more will die this time around. You can do something, out there."

  I had to laugh. Put a hand on his arm and smiled.

  "You're talking like I'm a fucking hero, Wilson. Let's not tell that lie, okay? My dad got me involved in this because he knows I'm not a hero. He knows I'm a coward, and a violent man, and I do violent things when I'm scared. And I don't want to be that man, not now. Maybe not ever." I pulled my hand away and crossed my arms over my chest. "But certainly not today, and certainly not for him."

  Wilson pressed his lips into a thin, furious line. He pushed me aside and, with contemptuous ease, tumbled the lock and threw open the door.

  "Fine, Jacob. Go. Hide. Leave us alone."

  I stared at him for a dozen breaths, and then stepped out into the alley. It was quiet and dark, the shouts of the rioters and the Badge confined to the other side of the buildings. I put my hands in my pockets and hurried down the road. The clouds above grumbled menacingly, and the first heavy drops of a serious spring rain splattered to the cobbles around me. I hunched my shoulders, tucked my chin into my coat, and kept my eyes down. With luck I could be inside before it hit.

  THAT WAS WHERE I got unlucky. The day I decided to finally put this place behind me, to get out, shake the dust from my shoes and make a new life somewhere else, that was the day the Badge locked down the whole city w
ith a strict curfew. Also, the rain started long before I got anywhere near shelter and as a final note, I had been awake for nearly twenty hours, and I had spent most of those hours either running for my life, fighting for my life, or drinking. It was beginning to show.

  I didn't get more than two blocks before I had to turn around. I wanted to get to the zep docks, get a ticket and a cabin and a bed. But part of a curfew means locking the city down, and that means controlling the most common means of retreat. The entrances to the pneumatic train were guarded, and the main avenues of approach to the docks, the gates of the city and the massive bridge that led up to the Torchlight and the zep docks were all heavily patrolled. On top of that, there were roaming patrols of very curious and helpful Badgemen. A couple minutes after midnight the sirens stopped howling, the last of the rioters were tucked comfortably into padlocked carriages, and the Badge had the streets to themselves.

  This was what I didn't understand. Why was the Badge locking the city down? I mean, I understood that it had been a pretty hectic day, what with the massacre on the docks. Still thought it was weird that the investigator who interviewed me this morning didn't know anything about that. Seemed to think it was some kind of fire that killed all those people. Angela knew, though. Figured.

  Stop it, stop it, stop it. Stop thinking about this. Focus on getting out of the city. Or maybe to a decent bed, somewhere no one will come looking for you, and try again in the morning. But if I don't get out tonight, who's to say that I'll have the will to get out tomorrow? Tonight, and then sleep outside the city.

  It was becoming increasingly difficult to stay out of the way of those patrols. Veridon was a labyrinth of alleys and streets and underground rivers, and there were only so many Badgemen on the payroll, but a lone pedestrian moving through the city at midnight, when the streets have been cleared, is going to draw the eye. Most of the honest citizens were in bed, cursing a siren at midnight for waking them up, and the dishonest citizens had gotten drunk and ended up in a riot. That just left the stragglers, like me and Wilson, folks who were up to serious mischief, and the truly determined drunks. There were pockets of these people lurking in alleyways, huddled around fire barrels, vigorously getting their bottles empty. I ducked into one such alley, its narrow walls high enough to block out all but the most direct rain. A group of drunks started when they saw me, drawing knives, until their bleary eyes figured out I wasn't there to arrest them. They stood in a tight ring around a fire barrel, sharing the heat and a bottle.