The Remnant

by Charlie Fletcher

  “I think he was telling the truth,” said Sharp.

  “Hold still,” said Sara, who was finishing tying the neckerchief around his wounded hand. “Yes. He was telling the truth. They found this mirror by accident.”

  “Not by accident. By watching,” said Sharp. “If it was The Citizen who went into the mirrors, he could be anywhere. He could even be back in France.”

  “Wherever he is, we’ll find him,” she said. “Now we will hold until Cook can sew you up.”

  “If it was The Citizen they saw,” said Sharp, “who was the companion?”

  The Green Man suddenly came awake, scrabbling to his knees in a panicked, vicious frenzy that took them all by surprise, lashing out and giving a terrible noise that was part shrieking moan and part growl. One hand snatched Sara Falk’s skirt.

  She looked down and saw the green face and the wild eyes and suddenly in a treacherous instant, like glinting-but-not-glinting, she wasn’t Sara Falk of The Oversight, she was young Sara, Sara the child, being chased by a snarling green-skinned madman through the upper floor of the Safe House; she was black-haired Sara the moment before her hair went white with pure terror; she was the little girl tumbling down the unforgiving stone backstairs in her desperate attempt to escape the nightmare made real, and she ripped herself out of the grip of the thing scrabbling at her leg and fell, dropping her knife, forgetting she knew how to use it in the primal panic that had ambushed her, crabbing back until she got tangled in Ida’s legs and they both fell, feet slipping in the blood still dripping from the ceiling.

  “Kill it!” Sara yelled. “Kill it!”

  Charlie was closest and he lunged and got his hand on the keening thing’s throat even as it tried to buck against the floorboards and jerk to its feet. He bulled it backwards and they hit the desk hard, toppling it over and landing in an avalanche of blood-spattered papers and parchment. Charlie put a knee on its chest and felt the nails of its flailing hand cut painful tracks across his cheek.

  He heard Sharp say, “Sara.”

  And then the Green Man writhed and lashed out again, slippery with cold sweat. Charlie struggled to keep a grip with his one hand and knee as he fumbled for the knife in the sheath at the small of his back. He found it and drew it fast, gripping it tight—

  The white eyes in the green face were wild and desperate, and then they stuttered suddenly and focused on something just over his shoulder.

  Don’t kill it!

  The voice seemed to come from deep inside his own head, loud and urgent.

  A hand slapped onto his wrist and grabbed it, stopping the knife.

  Charlie yanked against the grip and twisted his head to find he was looking into the dark-skinned face of a young man of his own age, a face shaking its head in an emphatic “No,” a face with eyes that were somehow trying to speak as urgently as the voice now echoing shouting in his head.

  Don’t kill it! Please! Enough blood!

  Behind him, Sharp pulled Sara to her feet as Ida untangled herself and cocked her crossbow warningly.

  “Ida,” said Sara, gasping for breath, sounding like herself, her adult self again. “If he doesn’t let go of Charlie right now, shoot him. He’s a Templebane; I saw him when I glinted in their counting-house. He’s a killer and he’s dangerous.”

  No. Enough blood. Too much blood.

  Amos let go of Charlie’s wrist and held out his badge like a shield.

  No. No. Read. Not a killer. Not a Bloody Boy!

  “Amos Templebane. Mute but Intelligent,” said Sharp, exhaling calmly. “Please don’t do anything stupid. Hands where we can see them.”

  He stared into Amos’s eyes. Amos blinked and shook his head.

  Don’t. That won’t work on me. Sorry.

  Sharp looked at Sara.

  “Well. Can you hear him?”

  She nodded.

  “Anyone else?”

  “I can,” said Ida and Charlie simultaneously.

  Amos seemed to sway a little in relief.

  Please don’t hurt the Green Man. He’s not dangerous. He’s scared. And a bit mad. They sewed up his lips so he couldn’t scream and took his blood. He’s been screaming inside ever since …

  He pointed. Charlie saw that this was what had been wrong with the Green Man’s mouth. It had been stitched shut to mute him.

  He heard Amos’s voice change as he tried to go into the Green Man’s head.

  Don’t struggle. They won’t hurt you if you don’t struggle. They’re meant to protect you. They’re not bad. They’re not like the others. Look at the rings they wear. They are The Oversight.

  Sara’s eyes dropped to her hand, and for a moment she felt something like a twinge of guilt.

  “Amos Templebane, Mute,” said Sharp. “You’ve told us who you are. But …”

  “ … but what are you?” said Sara.

  Amos looked at them all.

  Lost.

  He tried to smile, and was suddenly too weak to mind about the tears which seemed to be rolling freely out of his eyes.

  Lost. And very, very tired.

  CHAPTER 34

  A SHORTCUT FROM MARBLEHEAD

  Once the decision to allow Cait and Lucy to proceed had been made, the Circle had broken up and they were left alone to make their plan with the two “visitors” from the Western Remnant, as the Guardian called them. She had gone too, under the pretext of fetching them some coffee, but Lucy had the strongest feeling the Guardian had absented herself in order to soothe the ruffled feathers of those among the Circle who objected to the outcome of the meeting. Mrs. Tittensor, perhaps the most discomposed, had left immediately for Boston in order to fetch the dog she had reluctantly agreed to allow to go with them on their search. This errand, they were told, would take a couple of hours.

  Any relief that Lucy felt on being freed from the general scrutiny of such a large group of mildly hostile people was severely offset by the fact that, as soon as they were gone, the specific hostility which her actions had triggered in Cait was all the more unavoidable. And to make the atmosphere even worse, Armbruster had pulled out a villainous-looking pipe which he proceeded to fire up and puff happily, producing a pall of acrid tobacco smoke which hung around them in the still air of the meeting room like swamp gas.

  Lucy herself was torn between a feeling of anger at Cait’s stubborn inability to recognise that she had broken the impasse with the Remnant for no other reason than to help Cait’s quest for the stolen child, and a growing despair that their friendship seemed to have curdled irrevocably.

  “I don’t know why you’re so angry about this,” she said quietly.

  “And I’m no longer under any obligation to continue your instruction in the ways of the world,” said Cait. “So you’ll maybe have to untangle that for yourself.”

  “I’ve untangled why everyone seems to have a problem with fiagaí,” said Lucy.

  Cait raised an eyebrow at her. Lucy held her breath.

  “Well, you’re going to spit out your little bit of poison eventually, so crack on,” Cait said.

  “You’re monomaniacs,” said Lucy, using a word she had learned from Cook. The thought of Cook made her eyes suddenly prick, which was annoying because she didn’t want Cait to think she was tearing up because of her. “You’ve got one-track minds which makes you just as annoying as anybody who’s obsessed with just one thing. It makes you hard to be around. It’s …”

  “And there was you wanting to learn to be one,” said Cait. “And now I’m thinking you don’t.”

  “Well, at least you taught me that,” said Lucy, feeling spiteful even as the words left her mouth.

  Magill exchanged a look with Armbruster, and then pulled a leather satchel from under the chair he had been sitting on and proceeded to unfold a large and well-used map which he spread on the floor between them.

  “If it’s untangling you want, maybe it’d be as well you see what you’re asking us to do,” he said. “And this map here will give you an idea of th
e great wilderness in which you’re hoping to find this baby.”

  He unsheathed the largest knife Lucy had ever seen, nearly a foot long with a thick brass cross-guard more appropriate to a cutlass, and crouched over the map, using the distinctive concave tip as a pointer.

  “That’s a fine blade,” said Cait appreciatively, “for all that it doesn’t seem to quite know if it’s going to grow up to be a knife or a sword.”

  “One of Black’s original bowie-knives,” said Magill. “Won it in a poker game.”

  “Poker, is it?” said Cait, still eyeing the blade. “And would I be right in thinking that the poker is a sort of game of hazard played with the cards and that?”

  If Lucy had not seen Cait quietly draining the sailors of their savings over many hands of poker on their voyage over, she would have imagined from her innocent tone that she had never once held a pack of playing cards in her life. As it was, she knew Cait could manipulate cards quite as dexterously as she could people, and had decided to have the impressive knife for her own. And then she saw Magill’s smile and realised he was not taken in any more than she was.

  “Miss ná Gaolaire,” he said. “I wouldn’t dream of attempting to teach you the fine and manly art of poker: firstly since your evident innocence in the ways of the world should not be besmirched by one as crude as I; and secondly because I got this knife such a long while back that I’m kinda used to the feel of the thing on my belt and wouldn’t feel dressed without it …”

  “Well then, there’d be no fun in the game,” said Cait. “For you’re clearly not a man to be bluffed.”

  “No,” said Armbruster. “Though Jon being Jon, flirting’ll probably get you there in the end.”

  “Fred thinks I’m too romantic,” said Magill.

  “And are you not one for the romance?” said Cait, trying out a very convincing look of dewy-eyed disappointment.

  “No, ma’am,” said Magill. “Out where we range, it’s real and practical as gets the job done; romantic just gets you killed.”

  “Jon,” said Armbruster. “The matter in hand?”

  Magill grinned at Cait and looked back down at the map.

  “This is Boston here.” He reached out and indicated a spot on the other side of the continent. “That’s the Willamette Valley. More than three thousand miles off. That’s as far as you came by sea, more or less. It’s only in the last couple of years that there’s been a route you can take a wagon on. Some call it the Medicine Road, some the Oregon Trail. Either way, it’s a hell of a journey to take at the pace of an ox-wagon.”

  “And here’s the thing,” said Armbruster, around the stem of his reeking pipe. “And when I say thing I mean things, plural, because we got good news and bad news.”

  “Mainly bad, Fred,” said Magill. “Don’t shine ’em on. Close, but no cigar won’t put a smile on their faces.”

  “Why don’t you just tell us and let us make our own minds up?” said Cait.

  “The good news is that closet over there,” said Armbruster. “Though I’ll bet you can’t tell us what that is …”

  “I’ll take the bet,” said Lucy. “And if I’m right, you put the pipe out. It’s making my eyes sting.”

  “And if you’re wrong?” said Armbruster. “What do I get?”

  “Nothing. I’m not wrong,” said Lucy. “It’s a Murano Cabinet. Mirrored inside and out.”

  Armbruster raised his eyebrows in surprise. Then he nodded ruefully and crossed to the fire, where he tapped out his pipe.

  “These are reckoned rarer than hen’s teeth,” said Magill, looking genuinely impressed. “Now where’d you see one before?”

  “There’s one in the Safe House in London,” said Lucy.

  “Is that so?” said Armbruster, looking sceptical. “I never heard of that …”

  “Know what it does?” said Magill.

  “It’s used for taking shortcuts between looking-glasses,” said Lucy. “So you don’t always have to walk in the mirrored passages to get between places.”

  “You know a lot,” said Armbruster, looking at Magill.

  “I should do. I fell into one and ended up somewhere completely different,” said Lucy. “They’re dangerous things, and so is the mirror’d world, by all accounts.”

  “She’s right about that too,” said Magill.

  “So let me guess,” said Cait. “You’ve been using it to pop back and forth between here and wherever you are in the west. For a shortcut.”

  “And why’d you think that?” said Armbruster.

  “Because you’re dressed for travelling in colder climes than this,” said Cait. “Not like the rest of the folk here. And you smell of woodsmoke, not the coal that’s in the grate over there. So that says camp-fire to me. And the mud on your boots, Mr. Magill, is loamy and red, and the soil round here from what I’ve seen of it is black or sandy.”

  “Don’t play poker with her, Jon,” said Armbruster, “not if you really want to keep hold of that knife of yours.”

  “Wasn’t going to,” said Magill.

  “So I’m right then?” said Cait.

  “Yes and no,” said Magill. “We don’t much like the mirrors and what’s behind them. But we can get you to St. Louis or even Fort John up on the North Platte a damn sight quicker than if you went any other way. You could take the train from Boston to Springfield, but then it’s post roads and stages all the way west which’d take you the best part of ten days, or we can step into that cabinet and just step out in a house in St. Louis on the banks of the wide Missouri more than a thousand miles away. But …”

  He shrugged.

  “But what?” said Cait, an edge to her voice.

  “But even then it’d be too late,” said Armbruster. “This Graves see, the fisherman with your baby, he’s heading for the Willamette Valley, fixing to be a farmer like they all do. He left in the spring. Takes time to travel the Oregon Trail, and you can’t leave it too late. So, from what they tell us he jumped off early with the first wagon trains of the year, and if he made—and that’s a big old if, by the by—and if he made it, he’s unreachable until winter’s passed and the snows have opened the great Stoney Mountains again.”

  “It’s not full winter yet,” said Cait, looking out of the window.

  “Not here, ma’am,” said Magill. “But out there in the west, where the weather’ll kill you soon as spit in your eye, the mountain passes are already getting snowed in. There’ll be no more western passage along the Medicine Road until the thaw.”

  “That,” said Cait, “is unacceptable.”

  “Likely so,” said Magill. “Don’t mean it’s not true.”

  “What do you expect me to do?” said Cait.

  “Sit out the winter in St. Louis. That way you can get a jump on next year’s damn migration,” said Magill.

  “Or you could go home,” said Armbruster. “Though note that I’m not recommending that seriously, because I can see it’s an idea that’s poison to you and I don’t want you popping me one in the nose again.”

  “I can’t just sit in St. Louis,” said Cait. “Why can’t you use your mirrors to take us further, to this Fort John or beyond?”

  “Fort John’s no place for a young single woman to overwinter,” said Magill.

  “And we can’t take you beyond that now,” said Armbruster. “Certainly not further than the Devil’s Gate this late in the year.”

  The look he gave Magill had something in it that Lucy noticed before they both hid it.

  “Why?” Cait said.

  “Mirrors don’t go everywhere, and the mirror’d world ain’t safe, and it only works where there are other mirrors,” said Magill. “There’s passages made of looking-glass, but they don’t go everywhere, and in some places they just don’t work. The Murano Cabinets, well, sure they can sometimes be set to take you from somewhere you know to somewhere else if you’ve the knack of setting them right, without having to walk the passages, kinda like a shortcut inside a shortcut I guess, but ou
t beyond all this civilisation here, beyond Independence, say?”

  He waved his hand.

  “Precious few mirrors out there, in the unsettled territory.”

  “So I have a different question for you,” said Cait. “Why are you here?”

  “Sorry?” said Magill.

  “Why do you happen to be paying a visit to this circle as you call it, so conveniently, seeing as how you don’t belong to it,” said Cait. “I mean. Just at the same time we happen to be here?”

  “We’re not here because of you,” said Armbruster. “That’s just luck.”

  “Yes, well, I never got very far with just trusting luck,” said Cait. “I don’t trust it, nor strangers being unexpectedly helpful.”

  “Suspicious, ain’t you?” said Armbruster.

  “Always,” she said.

  Armbruster again looked at Magill, who nodded.

  “We’re not exactly helping you. We’re helping her because she’s a member of The Oversight,” he said, pointing at Lucy. “Because we been helped by them.”

  “In the past,” said Cait. “So this is just a sentimental thing?”

  “No, ma’am,” said Magill. “It wasn’t in the past. It’s now. We’re being helped by one of her colleagues right now.”

  “Jon and I are about as sentimental as you are trusting, which is to say, not a bit,” said Armbruster.

  Magill reached into his satchel and pulled out a dull grey rectangle of lead, about six by eight inches. Lucy could see it was incised with writing and symbols on both sides.

  “If you’re from London, you’ll have seen one of these,” said Magill, looking at Lucy. “I know you’re as worried about them as we are, which is why he’s been out here. We’re the ones been helping him track ’em down.”

  “Who?” said Lucy.

  “Mr. Sharp.”

  Cait’s head came up.

  “You’ve seen Sharp?” said Lucy.

  “Jack Sharp?” said Cait.

  “The very one,” said Armbruster.

  “But … he doesn’t know we found it,” said Lucy, staring at Cait.