by Frank Tuttle
I tossed the Creeper’s head up into the air, caught it as it fell, tossed it again, much higher this time.
Mama trundled back onto her porch, her arms full of rolled-up papers, each tied neatly with bits of yarn.
“You ought not to be doin’ that,” she said. “It ain’t right.”
I caught the head with a laugh. “As you wish.” Mama put the rolled maps down just inside the wall of water dripping off her roof. “Wait and I’ll get you a sack.”
“We’re in no hurry.” My voice came from the dead man’s head after the huldra showed me a word that would move his lips. Mama snorted and whirled.
The rain intensified. I could have stopped it. I could have sent it back into the sky, drop by drop, trickle by trickle.
Mama emerged again, a burlap sack in her hand. She trundled to the edge of her porch and held it open, out in the rain.
I dropped the Creeper’s head inside.
“The sooner you get back to Rannit the better,” Mama said. “You remember how long it took to get shed of that thing, the first time?”
“I do. And I won’t be so eager to be rid of it again, I think.”
I whispered a word, and the rain stopped.
Mama shouted something, and it started again.
I laughed. Mama put her back to me and slammed her door in my face.
I caught up the Corpsemaster’s precious maps, and took a pair of steps, and reflected on how lovely was the Moon, shining high above the tattered racing clouds.
I did not go immediately back to Rannit.
I knew the Corpsemaster would not be pleased. I knew, but the prospect of the Corpsemaster’s displeasure no longer troubled me. So I made for the Brown instead, and when the waters thereof washed about my knees, I turned my face north and walked, sending great sprays of muddy water far into the wilderness on either side.
The frantic huldra warned me against searching for the Regency. But I held fast to my fancy, and it had no choice but to follow. When it railed threats that it would remove itself from me I laughed, knowing them empty.
So we walked. I took on a new shape, one that rendered me invisible to any sorcerous persons watching.
Magic I might have tricked, but not nature. Birds flew as I passed. Deer bolted. Bears turned from their fishing and fled. A single bold owl refused to flee, following instead, and I chuckled as I recognized Mama Hog’s hand upon it.
I cast my vision north as I walked. The huldra reluctantly showed me how. Far, far up the Brown, I could see dim shapes in the darkness-square, graceless bulks that wallowed and bobbed in the water. Three shining figures moved among them, casting a harsh radiance that made it hard for me to see.
I withdrew my sight, lest I be caught out. Even though the rough-hewn barges I saw numbered in the hundreds, I was not daunted. Such fragile things. So easily broken.
At last, I caught sight of the Regency and its barges, churning their way steadily against the current, a wake of dark smoke trailing behind. Her decks were dark and her windows covered, but her smokestacks coughed sparks and I could see her easily in the lightning that flashed about her.
I hurried, sending waves over both banks. As I reached her, I dwindled, lest my approach raise alarms.
I barely rose above her stacks when a lantern flared on her deck and a trio of halfdead loosed glittering crossbow bolts at my face.
I chuckled and brushed them aside.
“Good evening,” I said. My voice echoed across the Brown, and I made it softer. “Evis. Come forth.”
I was much diminished, but even so I had to hurry to keep up with the Regency. It amused me to walk atop the frothing waters whipped up by the craft’s steadily churning paddle wheels.
The trio of halfdead kept their crossbows upon me. Ogres gathered in the shadows, readying their massive steel-tipped spears for throws I could easily swat aside.
Evis appeared, at a run, a strange thing of brass and steel gripped tightly in both his hands.
“I trust I have not disturbed you,” I said.
He regarded me with his dead white eyes for a moment. Then he relaxed, let the object in his hands drop to his waist, and ordered his men back to their posts.
“I wasn’t expecting to see you until we returned.”
“Come out, Miss,” I said. “I can see you.”
Gertriss appeared. She carried a long, plain blade around which a complex spell swirled and spun. I blew it out as one blows out a candle.
“No need for such things.” I felt myself smile. “The Corpsemaster sends her regards.”
Evis made a small bow. “I hope she is pleased with our progress.”
“She will be.” I hefted the sack I carried. “Miss, Mama has solved our little problem, in her usual straightforward fashion.”
She saw the bloodstain that dripped at the bottom.
“Is Mama…?”
“She is fine.” I let my vision wander, sending it northward, cautiously seeking out the location of our foes.
“They too are ahead of schedule. I fear you will find them somewhat closer to the bluffs than you anticipated.”
Evis shrugged. “We are making as much speed as we can.”
“It won’t be enough. But have no fear. Markhat is here.”
“Is he?”
I laughed. “You’re as bad as Mama Hog. Will you try to pour special tea down my throat, as well?”
“If it will help.”
“You dare much.”
Evis shrugged again. “I’m taking an experimental steamship into battle while hauling a couple of barges filled with unstable explosives. Having a smart mouth seems to run a distant third in terms of risk. And whatever else you may be, you’re still Markhat. Still my friend.”
“And mine.” Gertriss made herself meet my eyes. “Boss.”
I motioned upriver.
“How long will you need, to drill your shafts, and ready your explosives?
“A day. Even with ogres, even with…special drills.”
“That will never do. I shall prepare these shafts for you instead. How deep and how wide?”
Evis frowned. “Might the sorcerers among them not see you, if you venture so close?”
“How deep?” I said again. I towered up above the Regency. “How wide?”
Water broke in sudden swells around my knees.
“Twenty feet deep,” shouted Evis. “As wide as a beer-barrel. That’s what we’re using. We’ll need four columns of holes all the way up the bluffs, from the water line to the top. At least ten rows per column. That’s eighty shafts in all.”
“Eighty shafts. Twenty feet deep,” I said. “Wide as beer barrel. Maps, and maps and a dead man’s head.”
“What?”
I laughed, and the Regency dropped down below me, and as I walked away the Brown dwindled until it was only a ribbon of moonlit silver winding through a forest of black.
I sang my new song all the way to the bluffs.
I awoke to the feel of the sun on my face and the barking of an angry squirrel.
I tried to move, had an unsettling moment of panicked disorientation while I tried to work out the location and length of my limbs. After some difficulty, I regained the use of my eyes, and opened them, and managed at last to cuss.
I was seated atop my fine black Avalante carriage, back-to-back with my driver of the previous day, who still snored. My hat was beside me, being dragged away by an enterprising park squirrel, who I suppose fancied the felt as a first-rate winter bed for himself.
I shooed him away with a wave of my hand.
The carriage was parked atop a small, oak-covered hill. A warm morning breeze stirred the boughs. Dappled patches of sunlight raced.
Midmorning, at least.
And not a road in sight.
Around us, people laughed as they passed. Kids dressed in fancy play clothes rolled steel hoops past us, hooting and shrieking. Nannies in long skirts whispered behind their hands.
Our ponies munched grass
contentedly, out of the shade and in the bright sun.
“Good morning, gents,” called out Mr. Varney, the Park’s ever-present seller of birdseed. “Had ourselves quite a night, did we now?”
I shook the driver awake. His startled eyes took in the scene with a touch of rising panic.
“Whoa, kid. Settle down. It’s okay. Just round up the ponies, and let’s get out of here before the Watch comes around. I’ll explain it all later.”
“I didn’t have a sip, I swear.”
“I know you didn’t. Round up the ponies.”
He jumped down.
I rose and stretched. Even that was taxing. I hurt, all over, as if I’d spent the night in that least rewarding of pursuits, hard physical labor.
I remembered, though. Remembered bits and pieces of another walk with the huldra. Remembered being drunk with a power that wasn’t mine, wasn’t ever meant to be mine.
I rubbed my eyes and pushed the thought of such things away. After a moment of hearing my own voice roar like nearby thunder, I came out of the shade and helped the driver round up the ponies while rich kids taunted and jeered.
We made it back to Avalante just in time for lunch.
I surprised myself by being hungry. After I had a word with Jerle, to let him know the driver hadn’t been drinking on the job, I helped myself to a plate of Avalante’s good roast beef and fresh-baked bread.
The man who walked with the huldra would have laughed at the thought of mere food.
I had two plates. And a beer. And another one to keep the first company.
My inclination was to have a dozen more. Anything to drown the memories that were drifting past. I saw treetops from above. Clouds from within. I heard murmurs of words that, if spoken, could bring forth terrors from shadows that moved along strange paths, always just out of sight.
But I knew I could make the Brown into beer and drink every drop and I’d still remember.
So I thanked the cook and picked up my hat and I headed for the door. They offered me another carriage, but I told them I wanted to walk.
I needed to feel the sun on my face. I needed to feel Rannit’s cobbles under my soles. I needed to walk until I was good and tired and keep walking after that, because I didn’t know how I’d face the night and the newly risen ghost of the huldra.
The Corpsemaster had promised it would sleep, with the sunrise. And maybe that was true.
Maybe what I was half-seeing and half-hearing, even in the daylight, wasn’t coming from the huldra.
Maybe it was coming from me. Maybe the darkness had taken root.
I thought of corpseflowers as I stepped into the bright warm sun.
They only bloom at night. Pale, limp blooms that smell of death.
I pushed back my hat and let the sun beam down on my face, and I walked away as fast as I could.
I don’t remember punching the first bridge clown. I’m told I laid his ass out, and his fellows let me pass unmolested after that.
I wound up downtown with blisters on both heels. The height of the sun and the crowds at the eateries signaled late afternoon. I waited until a mob of office functionaries flooded the street around Lethway’s office to make a pass by his building.
I wasn’t sure Pratt would be watching, but he was, because I’d not even made the block before a cab sailed to the curb and Pratt flung the door open.
“Get in,” he said. I leapt aboard and fell into the seat across from Pratt.
We regarded each other with eyes both wary and weary.
Pratt looked like Hell had thrown a party and named him the guest of honor. I doubted I was any too chipper myself.
“You sick, Markhat?”
“Never get sick, Mr. Pratt. Clean living, that’s the key. You?”
“Never better. I assume you came here to see me?”
“Just checking to see if your boss had made any plans.”
“Oh, he’s making them, all right. He’s rounded up two dozen goons. Six of them have instructions to see what your insides look like. The rest are to go after the kidnappers.”
“Only six?”
“Three of them are professionals, Markhat. They’re not local talent, either. He means to see you dead. Even if it means risking the noose himself.”
I nodded. I’d hoped my threat of a post-mortem reveal of his war crimes would be sufficient to keep him at bay for a few weeks, at least. But he’d decided to collect some heads and let the Angels of Fate work out the aftermath.
“They set a time and a place?”
“Two nights from now. An old mill just south of the South Wall. Supposed to be haunted. The locals call it Spook Timbers. No Watch, no foot traffic, nothing but a few dozen hired killers and a sackful of double-cross.”
“Informal dress, then.”
He barked quick laughter.
“As long as you’re prepared to be buried in it, yes.”
I pondered this. The cab bumped and rolled.
“Do you still plan to attend, Mr. Pratt?”
“I made her a promise, Markhat.” I didn’t have to ask who she was. “She’s been sober ever since.”
“Good to hear.” I remembered hearing Mrs. Lethway fall against her door. If she’d managed to sober up on her own, there might be hope for her yet.
“You know any of the details? Is the meet inside, outside, in any particular room?”
Pratt sighed and shook his head.
“The place. Who picked it? Lethway, or the others?”
“They did. Lethway wanted to do it in the middle of the Brown River Bridge. I think the old man’s getting senile.”
I wasn’t so sure. “Keep your ear to the keyhole. Find out what you can. I’ll swing back around this time tomorrow, see if you’ve heard anything that might help.”
“I’ll do what I can.” A brief cloud of worry crossed his big wide face. “I don’t think Lethway is on to me yet, Markhat. But he’s suspicious of something, even if he doesn’t know what or who yet. He’s playing this one close.”
“He knows his neck is on the line. Don’t be too pushy. We can manage without a script. I have friends of my own.”
“So I hear. Any of them going to show?”
I shrugged. “One never knows.”
Mr. Pratt grunted. He let the silence linger for a moment and then called for his driver to pull to the curb.
“Tomorrow,” he said.
I leaped out.
Spook Timbers. Never heard of it. Didn’t like the sound of it.
So naturally that’s where I headed.
South Rannit managed to avoid the post-War frenzy of renovation and gentrification that swept across the rest of the city in freshly polished, patent leather boots.
South Rannit houses the slaughterhouses and the cattle yards and the tanneries and the paper mills and all the other industries that produce the kind of noise and waste that ruin patent leather boots in a single pair of steps. The streets are pitted, winding affairs dotted with potholes. The potholes themselves are disguised with pools of filthy factory waste-water, which shows iridescent coatings of strange oils to the sun and feeds the hundreds of thousands of fat black flies that fill the stinking air with a buzzing, biting fog.
My cabby cussed and shouted at other drivers and sought to dodge each and every pothole, lest he break a wheel or injure his pony with a single unlucky guess. Twice he threatened to stop and put me out, and twice I offered him more coin to proceed.
I had on my good boots, and I wasn’t eager to soil them in that brackish, oily sludge a moment sooner than necessity demanded.
I lost track of streets and had to trust my cabman’s growled pronouncement that we had arrived. I bade him to keep driving a couple of blocks, just in case the hollow, pane-less eyes of the old mill concealed smaller but brighter eyes of their own.
He cussed me but obliged. Out of sight of the Spook Timbers, I handed out coins in sufficient quantity to still the cabman’s tongue and entice him to leave South Rannit by any way s
ave the one he had come.
Then I set my doomed boots on the broken cobbles, put a mildly drunken wobble in my step, and made my way toward the nearest cattleman’s pub for a pint of piss-poor beer and an earful of local gossip.
I got both, beer and gossip, in spades.
It took a while, of course. I had to establish myself as a beef buyer for a meat packing firm on Bay Street. Since buyers for meat packing firms were as common as rats and nearly as well loved in the quaint folkish environs of the Steer and Hammer Pub, blending in wasn’t terribly difficult.
A less experienced infiltrator might have been tempted to loosen local tongues by buying a few rounds. Not Markhat, no, no-I pinched my coppers until they squealed, as any genuine buyer would, and endeared myself by losing a few rounds of darts I might otherwise have won.
After that, I was seated with a table of guffawing old men who kept calling me different names while they told me all the things old men like to tell and young men have no ears for.
But I had ears. And in between the sad tale of Ronny and Olga’s failed marriage and Bertram and Heather’s doomed crippled sons, I learned a few things about the neighborhood that fanned the flames of suspicion Pratt had ignited earlier in the day.
The Spook Timbers came up, again and again. Half my tablemates had worked there, when it had been a going concern. Old Letter Half-Hand displayed his maimed hand as he introduced himself, noting that he’d left four fingers in the Timbers and damned if one day he didn’t plan to march in and ask for them back.
The Timbers had been many things, since the Willow Creek had dried up and the big grinding wheels had ground to a permanent halt. An inn, a hospital, an apothecary, a whorehouse.
During the War, gangs had used it as a headquarters. The Watch had chased them out come the Truce, and the Timbers had stood empty ever since.
Until…
It was the until I had been hoping for.
Lethway’s plan of a Brown River Bridge swap was the preferred method for most kidnappers. It reduced the opportunities for treachery on both sides. It was public. It was quick. And the bridge clowns were helpful about redirecting traffic while the exchange took place, and remaining neutral and blind throughout.
