City of Lies

by Lian Tanner

  “Why, the Festival of Lies,” said the bandmaster. “Starts officially the day after tomorrow. Everyone likes to build up to it, which is why we are here, two days early, and not tucked up snug in our cells with a bowl of hot porridge in front of us. Although—” He chewed thoughtfully. “I do believe I would sacrifice a dozen bowls of porridge for this glorious feast.”

  “Why is it called the Festival of Lies?”

  “Because that’s what it is. For three days, the entire city turns upside down and back to front. No one tells the truth—unless they’re touching an animal, of course.”

  Goldie had a dozen more questions on the tip of her tongue, but the bandmaster was still talking. “It’s a good time for us, the Festival. Did you hear me, back by the fountain?” He raised his baton dramatically. “Feed the hungry, and the Seven Gods will ignore you for a whole year!”

  Goldie flicked her fingers.

  The bandmaster grinned. “It works too, and everyone in Spoke knows it.” He lowered his voice. “Of course, they could throw half-chewed crusts and boiled tripe and it would work just as well. But we’ve spread the word that the better they feed us, the more likely the Gods are to ignore them.”

  They had reached the other side of the plaza by now, and the musicians began to hurry, as fast as their chains would let them, through the winding streets. Goldie trotted beside them, watching for landmarks so she could find her way back again. An idea was growing inside her.

  “Why were you imprisoned, Herro?” she said. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “Don’t mind at all, lad,” said the bandmaster. “And you know why? Because I’m innocent.” He waved the leg of mutton at the musicians who rattled along behind him. “We’re all innocent. Young Dodger there, with the trumpet, is innocent of robbery with violence. Sweetapple is innocent of poisoning her husband, may Great Wooden rot his soul.” He flicked his fingers. So did Goldie. “And Old Snot—that’s him dribbling over the bass drum—is innocent of running a gang of pickpockets.”

  Old Snot grinned toothlessly at Goldie. Sweetapple, who was the tall trombonist with the limp, waved.

  “What are you—er—innocent of?” said Goldie to the bandmaster.

  “Forgery.” He struck a serious pose with his hand on his heart. “I did not do it, Your Honor. I have no idea how those fake coins came to be in my cellar. I am not a criminal.”

  He winked at Goldie, and she laughed. “If I wanted to find out about someone who is a criminal,” she said, “who would I ask?”

  The bandmaster puffed out his chest. “I have lived in Spoke all my life. No one has his finger on the city’s pulse the way I do. What’s his name, this criminal of yours?”

  “Harrow.”

  Goldie wasn’t expecting what happened next. The bandmaster seemed to trip over something. His baton flew out of his hand and clattered onto the cobblestones. The leg of mutton tumbled into the gutter.

  “Halt!” he cried. With a great clanking of chains, Sweetapple and the rest of the band shuffled to a stop behind him. The bandmaster picked up the baton and the meat and brushed the dirt off them. “No harm done,” he said.

  He turned back to Goldie. “Now, what were we talking about, lad?”

  “Um—Harrow,” said Goldie.

  The bandmaster screwed up his face, as if he was thinking. “Noooo, can’t say I’ve ever heard the name. Is he a local man?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “There you are, then. He’s probably from Lawe. A most disreputable city, Lawe. All the worst criminals come from there.”

  He took out his pocket watch again. “Oops, we’re late. Pick up those chains,” he roared at the band. “Double-time! Hup two three four, hup two three four!”

  As they jogged off, he glanced over his shoulder at Goldie. “So pleased to meet an honest lad,” he cried. Sweetapple waved again, and Dodger winked. Then, with a great deal of noise, they were gone.

  Goldie stood unmoving in the middle of the street. Despite the roast mutton, a hollow feeling had opened up inside her. As a trained liar, she could tell when someone else was lying.

  The bandmaster did know Harrow. And the name struck fear into his heart.

  “Over the last few days,” said Sinew, drumming his fingers on the kitchen table, “I have tracked a hundred different rumors. I’ve learned that the citizens of Lawe are plotting against their government, that Old Lady Skint has a new slave ship and that the mercenary army that was terrorizing the Southern Archipelago has left for unknown shores. But about the children I’ve discovered nothing.”

  In the basket by the stove, little dog Broo whimpered in his sleep.

  “Whoever has taken them,” said Sinew, “has covered their tracks too well. I need to go and search for them myself.”

  The sharp-eyed old woman who sat opposite him shook her head. Despite the warmth of the stove, she wore a blanket over her shoulders, as well as two knitted jerkins and four or five skirts. Her feet were thrust into militia boots. “We cannot spare you, Sinew.”

  “But we can’t simply leave them—”

  Sinew’s protest was cut off by the third person at the table, an old man with a broad brown face, and brass buttons down the front of his jacket. “Olga Ciavolga’s right,” he said. “We need you here, lad. The rooms are gettin’ restless again.”

  The Museum of Dunt was never entirely quiet—there was so much wildness contained within its walls that its rooms regularly shuffled back and forth like a giant pack of cards.

  But ever since the children had gone missing, that shuffling had grown worse. Even now, in the middle of the night, the gallery known as Vermin whispered and twitched, and the ancient dangers of war, famine and plague, locked away deep inside the museum, woke from their dreams and looked around with bright, vicious eyes.

  “This place don’t like it when its friends are in trouble,” said Herro Dan.

  “All the more reason,” said Sinew, “for me to go and look for the children! The sooner they’re back here, the better for everyone.”

  Olga Ciavolga nodded. “That is true. But think on this, Sinew. Right now there are three children in peril. If you go, and Dan and I lose control of the museum, every child in the city will suffer a terrible fate. And so will the adults.”

  Sinew leaned back in his chair and blew out a frustrated breath. “You’re right, of course. It’s just—we know these three! They are our friends. And I can’t help worrying about them.”

  Olga Ciavolga raised an eyebrow. “Do you think you are the only one who is worried?”

  “No, of course not. But what have we done, apart from chasing useless rumors? Nothing! They must think we’ve deserted them—”

  “What about Morg?” interrupted Herro Dan. “She’s a good finder, our Morg. We could send her to look for ’em.”

  There was a whir of wings from the rafters overhead, and an enormous black shape swooped down and landed on the old man’s shoulder. “Mo-o-o-o-org,” croaked the slaughterbird.

  “Yes, I’m talkin’ about you,” said Herro Dan. He smiled and scratched the bird’s chest fondly; then his face grew serious again. “Do you reckon you can find ’em for us? I dunno where they might be.”

  Sinew leaned forward. “Look out to sea, Morg. Try and find the ship that took them. And if you don’t have any luck there, try the cities.”

  “Look for thefts,” said Olga Ciavolga, “big and small. Look for the shadow that a theft leaves on the air.”

  “And if you find the children—” said Herro Dan.

  “When you find them,” Sinew corrected him.

  The old man nodded. “When you find ’em, do your best to help ’em. And bring ’em back safely.”

  “Ba-a-a-a-ack,” croaked Morg, shifting from foot to foot to make sure that the old man scratched the right spot.

  “All right then.” Herro Dan stood up and opened the kitchen door. “No point hangin’ around. Off you go.”

  The bird on his shoulder bobbed her head s
everal times. Then, with a great flurry of feathers, she launched herself out into the corridor.

  As the sound of her wings faded, Sinew heaved a sigh. “That’s something, I suppose. But I wish—” He picked up his harp, and half a dozen anxious notes trickled out into the kitchen. “I wish we knew where the children were! I wish we knew what was happening to them!”

  “Museum’ll tell us soon enough,” said Herro Dan. “If the rooms settle down, then the children are safe, and on their way home. But if things keep gettin’ worse—”

  He stopped. All three keepers looked grimly at each other. In the basket by the stove, Broo began to whimper again and would not be comforted.

  In the street outside the bread shop, everything was quiet. Goldie crouched in the darkness of the doorway, her mask firmly in place.

  She had not used a picklock for six months, but her fingers had not forgotten their skill. She slid the bent wire into the keyhole above the blade of her knife and began to push the pins up, one by one. As each pin slid out of the way, she heard a faint click.

  Several streets away, a man was singing loudly and drunkenly about a lost child. Goldie tried not to listen. Concentrate, she told herself.

  The last pin clicked into place. Quickly she glanced up and down the street, then pushed the door. It opened a crack and stopped. The door was barred from inside.

  Goldie took the iron lever from her waistband and eased it through the gap until she could feel the bar. She braced herself and pushed the lever upward. The bar rose smoothly—

  Stop! hissed the little voice in the back of her mind.

  Goldie stopped. She stepped away from the door for the space of five breaths, and let the night air tuck around her like a blanket. Then she gripped the lever in cold hands and started again.

  This time she pushed the bar up so carefully that anyone watching would hardly have seen it move. When she came to the place where she had stopped before, she paused. She pressed her ear to the gap. She shifted the lever a hair’s width—and heard the faint scrape of a wire.

  Carefully she backed the lever off and slid her makeshift picklock through the gap. There was the wire. Now, if she could just hook it in place—exactly in place—so the wire would not move while she lifted the bar—

  She had it. The bar rose and slid to one side. The wire strained to move, but she would not let it. With her heart in her throat she eased the door open just far enough and squeezed through into the gloom of the bread shop.

  Something brushed against her leg. She gasped and nearly let go of the wire. The gray-spotted cat glared up at her, then dashed behind the counter.

  “Are you following me?” whispered Goldie. “What do you want?”

  There was no answer, of course. She shrugged, hoping the cat would not make a nuisance of itself, and turned to inspect the door.

  It was as she had thought. There was a row of alarm bells hanging above the lintel. She reached up and disconnected them. Then she unhooked the picklock, leaned against the door with her eyes closed and let her body and her mind settle into the stillness of the Third Method of Concealment.

  Imitation of Nothingness was one of the most important things she had learned in her training as a thief. It didn’t make her invisible, but it did make her unimportant. So unimportant that even the light passed over her without stopping. As long as she moved slowly, there wasn’t one person in ten thousand who could see her.

  I am dust in the moonlight. I am a forgotten dream. I am nothing.…

  Her mind began to drift outward, until she could sense every nearby scrap of life, big and small, awake and asleep. There was the cat, crouched beside the counter, its pulse beating with a feral hunger. There were rats and cowbeetles in the walls, and cockroaches going about their secret business. And somewhere in the rooms behind the shop, four human hearts—two adults and two children—tolled out the slow rhythms of midnight.

  Goldie listened to those rhythms carefully. The children must be Bonnie and Toadspit. But who were the adults? Was Harrow here? She remembered how the bandmaster had shrunk in fear at the name, and her throat clenched. But at the same time she felt a bubble of anger. The people of Jewel used to shrink like that, whenever the Blessed Guardians passed by. Goldie had hated it then, and she hated it now.

  I bet Harrow likes making people afraid, she thought. I bet he likes squashing people. Well, he’s not going to squash me!

  She opened her eyes. The bread shop dozed around her, heavy with the smell of yeast. There were flagstones under her feet and, at the back of the shop, a small square doorway. Like a shadow, Goldie drifted toward it. The cat slipped out from behind the counter and prowled after her.

  The first room she came to held an enormous brick oven. There were no windows, and it was so dark that she had to feel her way around the walls, avoiding the stacks of empty tins.

  The next room was a kitchen and scullery. The heartbeats were closer now. Goldie crept toward them—then stopped, uncertain.

  “Why is everyone sleeping so peacefully?” she whispered to the cat. “Shouldn’t someone be keeping watch over the prisoners? Shouldn’t Toadspit be trying to escape? Maybe he’s still unconscious!”

  The cat sneered at her, as if it knew something she didn’t.

  And suddenly it struck Goldie that the bread shop didn’t feel at all like a place with stolen children in it. Instead, it felt … relieved, as if something dangerous had happened, but now it was over and done with, and the shop’s inhabitants could relax again.

  She slid into the first bedroom, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach. I am nothing. I am the memory of a cooling oven.…

  On one side of the iron-framed bed, a woman was snoring, her mouth open and a frayed bedcap covering her hair. Next to her, the bread-shop man, his eyebrows dusted with flour, mumbled in his dreams.

  Goldie left them sleeping and stole into the next room, where the two children lay in bunks. She peered hopefully at them—

  But they were strangers.

  The sinking feeling grew worse. She tried to push it away; Bonnie and Toadspit must be here somewhere; they must be! Perhaps they were imprisoned behind a very thick door, and that was why she couldn’t feel them.…

  The last three rooms were storerooms. The first and the second had no windows and were not locked. Goldie stood in the darkness, listening to her own breathing. One room to go.

  She hardly dared approach it. She saw the heavy door with the bolt on the outside, and her hopes rose and fell in sickening swoops.

  She slid the bolt back.

  She eased the door open.

  Unlike the others, the third storeroom had a tiny window. But the gaslight that filtered in from outside showed nothing but bare walls and a number of empty burlap bags strewn willy-nilly across the floor, as if someone had thrown them down in a temper.

  Goldie slumped back against the door. She felt like crying. Somewhere outside the window a dog barked, but she hardly heard it. She could no longer ignore the awful truth. Bonnie and Toadspit were not here. They must have been moved while she was walking around the city.

  “Idiot!” she whispered fiercely, wishing that she had listened more carefully to the little voice. “You’ve lost them!”

  The gray-spotted cat slunk past her into the room. “What am I supposed to do now, cat?” whispered Goldie, wishing that Broo were here, instead of this unfriendly creature.

  The cat ignored her. It stared at the burlap sacks, its tail twitching from side to side. In the far corner of the room, something scratched at the floor. The cat’s head swiveled toward it.

  The scratching sound came again. The cat’s bony hindquarters began to tremble. It inched across the floor on silent paws. It sprang. There was a squeak of terror, then nothing.

  Goldie swallowed, trying not to think about what might have happened to her friends. The cat sidled past her, a small, limp corpse dangling from its jaws.

  “He wants what?” said the Protector.

 
; The captain of militia cleared his throat. “He wants to help, Your Grace. Sorry to bother you at this time of night, but one of the guards told him about the children going missing, and he reckons he might be able to find them. I thought you’d want to know as soon as possible.”

  The Protector pushed her hair out of her eyes. She should have been in bed hours ago, but she could not sleep for worry about the missing children. And now there was this ridiculous offer from the Fugleman. “He’s in a prison cell!” she snapped. “How could he possibly find anything? Except perhaps for bedbugs.”

  “He says he’s got contacts, Your Grace. People he’s worked with all over the peninsula, and in the Southern Archipelago too. They’re not a nice bunch—he admits he’s been a bad boy. But that’s all the better, Your Grace. If it’s criminals or slavers who’ve taken the children, then who better to find them than other criminals and slavers?”

  The Protector felt the old anger welling up inside her. “Tell the Fugleman—the ex-Fugleman—that we do not need—”

  She forced herself to stop. Perhaps she should not be so hasty. After all, Sinew’s inquiries had come to nothing, and so had hers.…

  “Why is he offering this?” she said. “What does he want? Money? Or is he trying to worm his way back into favor?”

  “He claims to be genuinely remorseful, Your Grace.”

  The Protector laughed grimly. “I am sure he does. But what’s his real reason?”

  “Maybe—maybe he’s hoping for a lighter sentence.”

  “Mm. I suppose that could be it.”

  “If he’s genuine, Your Grace, there’s no harm done. And his villainous friends might just be able to help.”

  “And if it’s a trick?”

  “Then we need to expose it as soon as possible.”

  The Protector pushed her chair back. “What does he need?”

  “He wants to send out lots of semaphore messages, that’s all. He says he can do it from the House of Repentance if you’ll let him into the office and give him a runner.”

  “I still don’t like it.”

  “He’ll be under close guard, Your Grace. And we’ll make sure that the messages are read before they are sent. We won’t give him a chance to get up to any of his nonsense.”