The Masked City

by Genevieve Cogman

  Atrox Ferox didn’t quite crack his impassive facade, but his eyes widened and he seemed visibly impressed. ‘When last seen, the Guantes were in the carriage four down. They had two prisoners: the dragon, and another whose powers aren’t known to me. The carriage is guarded. Also, the Train is pursued.’

  ‘Pursued?’ Irene said in alarm. She hadn’t thought things could get any worse, but here they were. Just another cherry on the cake.

  ‘Others among our great ones are involving themselves,’ Atrox Ferox said. ‘Even those who had no interest in the dragon would wish to take the Train for themselves - then bind it anew. And the Rider himself comes in force, to reclaim what is his. Thus it flees.’

  ‘Can they catch it?’

  ‘Perhaps within the hour.’ Atrox Ferox shrugged, the light catching the steel plating in his bodysuit. ‘Perhaps less, if luck favours them.’

  Irene repressed the urge to run her hands through her hair. ‘So, correct me if I’m wrong. The Guantes are on board. They have two hostages. They are in the carriage four down from here with - how many other guards?’

  ‘Two armed guards,’ Atrox Ferox said. ‘And Sterrington. I will momentarily place Athanais where he will not be disturbed.’ He opened the compartment door and deposited him on a cream sofa.

  ‘And how many guards in each carriage between us?’ Irene was trying to gauge her opposition, but however she did this, the words YOU LOSE seemed worryingly inevitable.

  Atrox Ferox shrugged. ‘Half a dozen in each carriage, and the same in the carriages beyond them. You must have made quite an impression.’ His speech was significantly less formal now, coming and going, and Irene wondered how much of it had been a deliberate pose.

  Zayanna sighed and leaned against Irene’s back, draping her arms round Irene’s neck. ‘Darling, I hate to say it, but this isn’t sounding good. Can you enchant their eyes?’

  ‘Probably not,’ Irene admitted: there were just too many. Her mind raced through other tactics instead. She had read Sun Tzu, after all, and she knew her enemy. Assuming Atrox Ferox wasn’t preparing a trap - to say nothing of Zayanna, whom she could only trust so far, if at all.

  She needed to think outside the box somehow. Having Atrox Ferox and Zayanna escort her through as a ‘captive’ was a possibility, but she could think of far too many ways it could go wrong.

  Something was prodding at the back of her mind. Outside the box. The Train was basically a set of boxes. So she needed to get outside the Train. But could she … ? She looked up at the ceiling of the compartment. There were two unobtrusive trapdoors in the ceiling, one at each end of the compartment.

  All right.

  ‘Clarice?’ Zayanna prompted, and Irene realized they were waiting for her to speak.

  ‘I think I have an idea,’ she said. A really bad one. ‘I need to shorten my skirts, I need a lift and I need a gun. Atrox Ferox, may I borrow yours?’

  He considered for a moment, then handed it over. ‘If any ask, I will say you overcame me and took it from my body,’ he warned.

  ‘That sounds very reasonable,’ Irene said. She took it from him and gauged its weight in her hand. ‘How many shots does it hold?’

  ‘Fifteen. You will find there is little recoil.’

  ‘What do you mean, a lift?’ Zayanna asked. ‘And where do we come into it?’ She brought out a knife from somewhere - Irene decided not to wonder how she’d hidden it in her bikini - and offered it to Irene.

  Irene tucked the gun under one arm and began to roughly shorten her skirts to knee-level with the knife. ‘I mean that I’m heading for the roof of the Train.’

  There was a deadly silence. Finally Zayanna said, ‘Darling, are you completely and utterly insane? I mean, it’s tremendously brave of you, but—’

  ‘The Train hasn’t tried to stop me so far,’ Irene said. The knife ripped through her sodden skirts, baring her stockings and shoes. ‘I’m counting on that to mean I can move along the roof. I’m grateful for what you two have done, but I don’t want to get you into further trouble.’

  That was a lie, but it was more polite than trying to get rid of them. ‘Though if you could manage a bit of a diversion, I would be grateful.’

  ‘Such is within the bounds of propriety,’ Atrox Ferox pronounced.

  Zayanna pressed her knuckles against her mouth, her teeth showing white as she gnawed on them. ‘I’ll scream,’ she promised. ‘We’ll draw some of the guards out of the way. Oh, do be careful, Clarice.’

  You’re following the Distressed Maiden archetype rather than the Dark Seductress mode right now, Irene mused drily. But all she said was, ‘Just be careful,’ as she tucked Atrox Ferox’s gun into her sash. ‘Both of you. Please.’

  They nodded. Then Atrox Ferox went down on one knee under the nearer trapdoor, offering her a convenient step.

  Irene balanced on his shoulder, looking up. The round trapdoor was large enough to fit her comfortably, with a heavy bolt on one side, and two thick hinges on the other. The mechanics were obvious enough. Adrenaline was fuelling her again and so, before she could change her mind, she quickly tugged on the bolt and pushed, hard, on the cold metal. It swung past her with a loud screech from the hinges, and with a howl the noise of the wind filled the compartment. It wasn’t exactly quiet - something to remember at the other end.

  She looked up at the night sky, full of stars and darkness. ‘Now, please,’ she said.

  Atrox Ferox rose to his feet underneath her, boosting her up smoothly. She wriggled out onto the top of the Train, fingers groping for a handhold.

  The wind nearly ripped her off the roof before she could even get her balance: she flattened herself desperately against the metal, sliding across the roof of the Train as the trapdoor thudded back into place underneath her. Its momentum slammed her into the ornamental rail on one side of the roof, and she latched on to it with the strength of panic. The polished metal was freezing cold, and for a moment her hands began to slip. She forced herself to grip more tightly, her lips shaping silent windblown curses, the Language no use to her here. Finally, she managed to wedge her hip into the narrow gap between rail and Train roof to steady herself.

  Endless pale dunes of sculpted sand whipped past under the cold stars, as she tried to make herself move again. Her very practical and very present fear of death warred with her need to rescue her friends. But time was running out. She pushed herself onwards.

  The slipstream pressed her against the roof as if she was on an extreme fairground ride, but as long as she kept flat to the metal surface as she pulled herself along, it was manageable. The sound of the wind and the Train’s wheels filled her ears, shaking her down to her bones.

  Then as she came to the end of the carriage, before the covered section that joined it to the next, she raised her head briefly to look down the length of the Train. It seemed to stretch on for dozens of carriages, a near-endless stream of mercury and darkness crossing the desert. Beyond that, right at the edge of her vision, she saw followers, and her stomach clenched. She couldn’t make them out clearly, but some were dark, some were bright; some might have been hounds or wolves, while others might have been riders or motorcyclists, or even cars. But they were spread across the horizon, all inexorably tracking the Train. And in the lead was a single figure on his own, running along the track. The Rider, come to take the Horse back and fulfil his own story.

  She saw failure in that moment. Unless she remembered something.

  Abandoning one precious handhold, she raked her fingers against a join in the roof’s metal panelling until she felt a raw edge snag her skin and draw blood. Then she reached into her bodice, finding the pendant that Kai’s uncle had given her, and dragged it over her head. The chain caught in her tangled, matted hair and she had to tug to get it free. What had he said?

  … place a drop of your blood on this and cast it to the winds …

  Irene folded her grazed hand around the pendant. But nothing happened. There were no dramatic changes of tempe
rature, no glowing lights - nothing. Some sort of sign would have been nice.

  Please let this work, Irene thought, and threw the pendant out into the darkness beyond. It glinted for a moment in her vision, perhaps a spark of brightness from the silver chain, and then it was gone.

  She continued to crawl down the Train.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Four painstakingly counted carriages later, each one of them a dance with death as the Train swayed and bucked, Irene decided she must be there.

  Now she needed to check the interior of the carriage. But fortunately the old cliche was true: people never did look up. And they wouldn’t be able to hear her up here, either. She positioned herself over the nearer trapdoor, locked her grip firmly and shouted, ‘Trapdoor, turn transparent.’

  The steel complied. Inside it looked positively cosy, in a dark, steely sort of way. Possibly it was the warm light of the gas-lamps, and the contrast from carriages-worth of cold, dark crawling. Her angle of vision also, most importantly, gave her a clear view of Vale and Kai. Both had been tied hand and foot, with their wrists behind their backs. They were on the floor at her end of the carriage, and they both seemed unconscious. Sterrington was standing over them, a naked pistol in her hand, in a posture suggesting that she’d shoot them at the least provocation. She looked, for want of a better word, ruffled. So Irene’s first move must be to neutralize Sterrington, and her gun.

  The Guantes were further down the carriage, towards the far end. Lord Guantes was seated, frowning intensely at the hostages, his focus on them almost palpable. Look away, instinct prompted Irene, and she forced herself to watch Lady Guantes instead. The woman was pacing slowly from side to side of the compartment, placing one grey-slippered foot deliberately in front of the other. She was entirely dry. (Unlike Lord Guantes, whose fine velvets showed traces of damp.) Her silk gown swished around her ankles as she walked, and her fur cape was drawn tightly around her shoulders; her gloved hands tightened on its edges as she said something that Irene couldn’t hear.

  ‘Trapdoor, return to your normal state. And thank you,’ Irene shouted as quietly as she could. She didn’t know how much licence she’d been given to use the Language, but she wasn’t taking any risks. She flexed her hands one at a time, to get some feeling back as she readied herself. All right. Her situation was pretty dire. But she had the element of surprise, and the Language. And a gun.

  Although Sterrington also had a gun. And Lady Guantes and Lord Guantes might be armed too.

  Perhaps she should make sure that nobody had guns …

  Irene inched backwards to where two carriages met. The join was walled and roofed with canvas, swaying alarmingly with each movement of the Train. Fortunately, she didn’t need to navigate it, as there was actually a ladder down the side of the carriage. She was out of the wind as she clung there, and she scraped her tangled hair back from her face so that she could see clearly.

  The connecting sections opened onto the carriage corridors, rather than the interior compartments. And the corridor would be filled with guards, according to Zayanna and Atrox Ferox. But they wouldn’t expect her to burst through the compartment wall - if she had enough adrenaline left to muster the appropriate Language. The butt of Atrox Ferox’s gun was cold in her sweating hand.

  ‘Train wall in front of me,’ she shouted, ‘open like a door and allow me to enter the carriage beyond. Then close.’

  To her relief, the metal in front of her swung open compliantly, and she stepped into the carriage, just a yard behind Sterrington and the prisoners. She stumbled at the sudden cessation of pressure and wind. But Sterrington was already turning and raising her gun, Lady Guantes was whirling, her hand moving beneath her cape, and Lord Guantes was standing. Irene bowled Atrox Ferox’s gun down the compartment, straight at the Guantes.

  ‘Guns,’ she shouted, as Sterrington levelled her pistol at her, ‘explode!’

  The carriage rang with the thunderclap, and the Train shook.

  It was messy. There was no way it couldn’t be. Sterrington shrieked in pain as the gun in her hand shattered in a bloom of flame. She clutched at her bloody wrist, trying to stop the flow of blood, bone showing white through the bleeding flesh of her savaged hand.

  Lord and Lady Guantes were both getting up from the floor. Atrox Ferox’s gun had exploded much more violently than Sterrington’s, but they weren’t as close to it. All that was left of the weapon was a charred patch, like an exotic stain, which stood out against the grey-draped back wall. Fragments of metal had ripped into the cushions of the chairs and into the thick carpet, and had scarred the dark panes of the windows.

  But both the Guantes looked unharmed, beyond some damage to their clothes. Whatever Lady Guantes had under her cape, it wasn’t a gun. A knife, perhaps. Irene didn’t think she was the sort of woman to go unarmed.

  ‘Doors, bolt.’ There were clicks as the two compartment doors into the passage locked themselves, keeping any minions firmly out. ‘Try anything,’ Irene said quickly, her ears still ringing from the explosion, ‘and I’ll do even worse. Sterrington, go and stand with them.’ The woman stumbled down the carriage towards the Guantes, her face deathly pale.

  ‘My dear Miss Winters,’ Lord Guantes said. ‘You would appear to have exhausted your resources already.’ He spoke with casual arrogance, but the sheer fury in his eyes and the snap in his voice betrayed his fragile self-control.

  ‘Lord Guantes,’ Irene cut in, before he could catch her off-balance again. Lady Guantes also had her full attention on Irene, neither of the pair making any move to help Sterrington, who was probably in shock. ‘If I want,’ Irene continued, ‘I can shatter the windows on you, break the floor and ceiling, set fire to the furnishings and break each bone of yours as I name it.’ And it was a good thing that she wasn’t saying all this in the Language, because it wasn’t entirely true. But some of it was. Her hand went to Zayanna’s knife, still stuck in her sash. ‘I have absolutely no compunction about using my full powers.’

  ‘And should we assume you’re as dangerous as Alberich?’ Lady Guantes asked Irene sceptically. She edged to her right, further away from Lord Guantes.

  There was banging on the compartment door.

  ‘You should assume that I am very dangerous indeed,’ Irene replied.

  Lord Guantes took a step to his left. They’re trying to split my attention. ‘Then why aren’t you using these incredible powers?’ he said in tones of polite curiosity.

  ‘It would endanger everyone in this carriage.’ The banging on the doors was getting louder. She took a deep breath: she had to look in control here. ‘But being your prisoner would be worse, so I’ll act if pushed. So come on, Lord and Lady Guantes. I’m asking you to offer me a better alternative. Call off your men. Let’s talk.’

  ‘And if we don’t?’ Lady Guantes asked. Her hand slid under her cape again.

  ‘Then I start by ordering this knife through your husband’s eye.’ Irene pulled the knife from her sash. ‘And whatever you try, madam, I’ll get there first.’

  Her absolute sincerity must have shown, as Lady Guantes slowed, her hand now still under her cape, and Lord Guantes gave his wife a little nod.

  From the corner of her eye, Irene saw Vale move. His eyelid flicked open, then closed again - not the pained blinking of someone slowly regaining consciousness, but a clear signal. He was awake.

  ‘Guards, stand down!’ Lord Guantes said sharply, raising his voice so that it would carry through the door. ‘That is an order. All stand down.’ His voice echoed in Irene’s bones, and she had to stiffen her arm to prevent her hand from trembling. ‘I will call if there is any additional trouble.’

  Silence fell in the corridor and the Train rattled as it raced on, the shadows of great trees moving beyond the windows. Lord Guantes looked at his wife, then turned back to Irene. ‘Convincing, Miss Winters, but I am hardly about to surrender.’

  ‘I’m not asking for surrender,’ Irene said, her mind racing as she tried to f
igure out what she should be demanding. ‘There must be some way that we can both walk away from this. You may already have touched off your war. This dragon’s family,’ she prodded Kai with her foot, ‘they already know that he was kidnapped by you.’

  Lord Guantes raised his brows. ‘By me?’

  ‘And by Lady Guantes, of course,’ Irene said fairly. ‘His uncle showed me pictures of you both. You don’t need Kai any longer: you’ve already made your point.’

  Lord Guantes frowned. ‘You say you identified us personally to him?’

  ‘You’re well known,’ Irene said. ‘He had photos of you. The Library had records on you. I’m hardly the only person who pointed the finger. And even if something does happen to me, you’ll still be on record as the people responsible.’

  ‘So releasing you would make no difference. And if we let you go, you’ll have even more to report,’ Lord Guantes said pleasantly.

  Irene found herself lulled by his speech, and bit her tongue as she felt a wave of his compulsion roll over her. The longer she allowed him to speak, the more opportunity she gave him to use his magic. ‘But he can’t touch you if you stay in high-chaos worlds, can he?’ she pressed.

  ‘You’d be surprised how far a dragon king can reach—’ Lord Guantes began.

  ‘My love, let us stay with the essentials,’ Lady Guantes cut him off. ‘Suppose we make a bargain that lets you walk away. What do we get out of it?’

  Irene almost sighed in relief. ‘Well, I let you walk away,’ she smiled, gesturing with her knife.

  ‘That’s all?’ Lady Guantes said.

  ‘You can spin it however you want,’ Irene said flatly. ‘I’m only interested in getting out of here and putting Kai under his uncle’s protection. I want your oath on our safety. Say we begged, we grovelled, you twisted us round your little finger - say whatever you want to the other Fae, we won’t contradict it. Claim that you got the better of us all the way down the line. I won’t argue. I won’t be there to argue.’