“You truly believe that?” Sodiq asked, seeming skeptical now of every word that came from Senlin’s mouth. “Tell me, Captain Mudd, what do you think erasure adds to our world?”
Senlin’s mind raced. What would a zealot say? Surely they would blame the knowledge rather than its application, much as a gambler blames the cards rather than his play. Quickly enough, he blurted out, “Imagine if our race could only lose the formula for gunpowder! Wouldn’t that be spectacular? Imagine if we could forget the process for capturing hydrogen, storing it, wielding it. We have been bloodied by our own cleverness, have we not? We are bedeviled by books!”
The mob’s baying was somewhat mollified by this, though the cooling of certain tempers seemed to fan the fires of others. Several hods called for the blinder to be put back on him, and Senlin shivered when someone suggested they introduce millipedes in the blinder before bolting it on his head.
But the more the mob squalled, the more placid Sodiq looked. Senlin saw he was clearly more perplexed than incensed. He appeared to be having a difficult time reconciling the fact that he had been saved by Captain Mudd, the hod slayer.
Abruptly, Sodiq barked at the frenzied hods to go back to their business. Didn’t the camp have mushroom beds to tend, beetle traps to empty, and infants to nurse? The zealots dispersed at once and without a grumble, all except Finn Goll, who sat down on the stone bench before the burbling fountain. The former lord of port wiggled his rump to make it clear he wasn’t going anywhere.
“What do you want, Hodder Finn?” The weariness in Sodiq’s voice hinted at a strained history. Goll looked gaunt and older than the half year that had passed since Senlin had last seen him, though surely part of his aging was owed to his closely shaved head and the absence of his former tailored attire. Now he was as pale as a turnip and done up in rags. There was more silver than black in his stubble. Yet his expressions and gestures were as youthful and active as ever, and Senlin saw the specter of the man who’d interviewed him once upon a time on a beer-me-go-round.
“What do I want?” Goll said, pressing his short fingers into his puffed chest in a show of unconvincing innocence. “I just want to help my fellow hods. And of course, I want to see the Tower ground down to a stump no taller than a footstool. I want to prop my aching feet on this old pillar and—”
“Spit it out, Finn,” Sodiq said with a roll of his wrist.
“Well, I suppose I want to collect the purse for turning this criminal in,” Goll said.
“Now, wait just a minute,” Tarrou said. Up until then, John had been silent and only making expressions of general shock, presumably for the camp’s benefit. His act had been convincing enough that Senlin was left a little unsure that his large friend was still entirely on his side. “You didn’t catch anyone! I dragged the scoundrel here. If anyone deserves that reward, it’s me!”
“You? You didn’t even know who you had!” Goll had to tilt his head back to a comical degree in order to look down his nose at John, though he managed it.
“I knew I had someone special. They don’t put those blinders on just anybody.”
“Well, I tell you what—you keep the bucket, and I’ll take the man,” Goll said.
Sodiq raised his hand. Previously, the gesture had made him look like a reticent student, but now Senlin thought he looked more like an old man in a café wearily attempting to attract the attention of a server. “Hodder John, Hodder Finn, I’m not sure you have an equal claim to the man, but I find your eagerness to pillage the cause equally disgusting. The bounty was meant to attract the assistance of outsiders. It was not intended to encourage followers to drain our coffers. And believe me, a hundred minas is not enough to redeem either of you. You are hods. You will always be hods. If you want to escape the black trail, the only way is to destroy it.” The old hod’s sternum stood out as proudly as a breastplate. “But why am I wasting my breath on the two of you? Your greed has made you forgetful. Neither of you have yet to deliver this man to Hodder Luc, and those are the terms of the bounty.”
“Then I’ll finish what I started,” Tarrou said, grasping Senlin by the arm.
Finn Goll hopped up onto the bench and seized Senlin’s remaining arm. “Finish what you started? I found this rascal while he still had mud on his boots.”
“Well, if you want to turn the beggar into a wishbone, I’m happy to oblige,” Tarrou roared. “You pull that arm, I’ll pull this one, and whoever comes away with the bigger piece wins!”
“Stop it, both of you!” Sodiq’s voice was well suited to giving orders, and both the brawler and the little person dropped their hold on Senlin. “You’ll deliver him to Hodder Luc in Mola Ambit together, and you’ll share the shame of your reward. And just to make sure that neither of you get any wicked notions: If the both of you don’t arrive, whatever the reason, the survivor will be charged with the murder of a fellow hod and hanged for the crime.” The proclamation seemed to finally dampen John and Finn’s passion. Sodiq smiled at their deflated spirits, adding, “Oh, don’t worry: You can carry your reward with you to the gallows. A little extra weight never spoiled a hanging.”
As the prisoner, it fell to Senlin to play the role of mule for the group. The pack he was given was an assemblage of sackcloth, twine, and stiff rawhide, which sawed blood from his bare shoulders almost immediately. The pack contained fresh bandages and herbs for Hodder John’s poultice, three coarse blankets, six pounds of “beetle cakes” (which Senlin was disappointed to discover were exactly what they sounded like), two waterskins, and a hundred feet of hemp rope, broken into two lengths. It was clear to him that as humble as the provisions seemed, they were a great sacrifice to the camp.
For means of self-defense, Tarrou was entrusted with a knife. The bodkin was nicked and rust-licked but sharp enough. Finn Goll, who’d spent some months among the zealots, was entrusted with a short-barreled blunderbuss. The trumpeted mouth of the ancient gun was battered, and its stock appeared to be held together with a leather thong. But Sodiq assured him it would fire when called upon, though they only had enough powder for a single shot. The rest of the camp’s black powder supply had recently been dispatched for another purpose.
They were each given a caged lantern that contained a thatch of gloamine inside a sphere of bubbly glass. A map that was as byzantine as a fingerprint and an inclinometer (which some called a slope compass) were assigned to Hodder Finn. The beetle-browed little person was quickly becoming the group’s de facto leader, much to Senlin’s discomfort.
Their destination, Mola Ambit, was marked on the map with a small black X. Mola Ambit lay in the walls near the fifteenth ringdom of Nineveh. They would climb there via the network of airshafts that delivered fresh air to the black trail and many of the Tower’s ringdoms. The airshafts were generally untraveled because they were desolate, difficult to traverse, and confusing. Without maps, which were exceedingly rare and often out of date, entering the ventilation maze was considered just a roundabout sort of suicide. It was easy to get lost in the dark. And then there were the chimney cats to consider, as both Finn and John were quick to point out.
“Of course it’s dangerous. Why do you think I’ve armed you?” Sodiq replied.
Tarrou held up the old dagger he’d been given, and said, “This isn’t a weapon. This is cutlery.”
Sodiq ignored John and addressed Senlin instead. “I realize, regardless of all the perils that lie ahead of you, you’ll still be tempted to flee. I know I would be.” Sodiq smiled at him like a wayward son. Senlin couldn’t help but wonder what Sodiq had been before the black trail had cracked him and Marat had put him back together. “But you have fled before, Hodder Tom, haven’t you? You have the haunted look of a man who has bolted in every direction, a man who has fought every adversary and somehow never run out of enemies, a man who has plotted himself nameless, friendless, and nearly lifeless. You already know what happens when you run. You know you cannot panic your way to freedom; you cannot worry yourself home. You must face
your fears. The only way out is inward.”
“Oh, yes, well, I agree,” Senlin said, and wishing to make one last appeal to the man’s emotions, he added with a little more feeling: “I believe I have faced my fears. I mean, didn’t I stand up to those bullies in the alley with you? I’m only sorry I couldn’t return your book.”
“Its usefulness had passed. I took it for purely sentimental reasons. I wished to destroy it myself; savor its erasure like a cigar—when I partook of such indulgences. That volume contained such awful, beautiful knowledge. Perhaps future generations will be morally advanced enough to be entrusted with such a full and clear understanding of nature, the cosmos, and time. When we are gone, and all the books we penned have been destroyed, either by effort or indifference, those fossilized creatures will still lurk under the earth, waiting to be found. It’s a comforting thought, isn’t it?” Sodiq smiled wistfully, the expression sunken from absent teeth. Senlin realized, with some surprise, that not all of Marat’s followers believed in his rationale, though they agreed with his conclusion: Man was too clever, and the Tower must fall.
The camp leader recovered his formal tone quickly enough. “I’ve informed Hodder Luc of your good deeds. Honestly, I’m glad I am not the one who has to decide whether your conversion is sincere. I will tell you this: You are not, in spite of what you might think, marching toward inevitable death. If Hodder Luc wanted you dead, he wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble to say goodbye. He wants to speak to you, which means there is hope. Or at least an answer.”
“I still don’t understand why we can’t just take the trail,” Finn Goll interjected, seeming to have sat upon this complaint for some moments. “Yes, it’s winding and slow, but it has to be safer.”
Sodiq shook his head as he replied, “The moment word gets out that a giant and a little person are delivering Captain Mudd to collect the reward, you would become the target of every violent criminal on the trail. No, you are too obvious of a party to go publicly. You will take the vents because it is the safest way for the three of you to travel together.”
The nearest entry to the airways lay just outside the camp at the summit of a warped stairwell that broke off from the main trail and spiraled around like a pig’s tail. Before the three men began their climb, Sodiq offered them a word of parting advice, the tone of which sounded like a weary father who hadn’t much hope for the children he addressed. “Listen to me: You will either survive together or suffer alone. Be good to each other. We’re all hods here.”
As the three men mounted the curling and uneven stairs with Goll leading the way, Tarrou hung back to speak to Senlin out of the corner of his mouth. “Don’t worry, Tom, I’ve not turned on you. It was all an act. Not bad, eh? I had hoped I could convince them to let me take you off on my own. Oh, well. We’ll figure something out. The mean little runt has to sleep eventually. When he does, we’ll get that musketoon off him. See if he still feels bossy then.”
At the top of the stairs there was a narrow landing. Already the commotion of the trail seemed far behind them. The airshaft entrance lay as low to the ground as a storm drain. The opening was no more than shoulder width and perhaps two feet high. What wind came from it was faint and warm. The air didn’t seem particularly fresh; it smelled more like a desert corpse than an open window. Inside, the darkness seemed endless and entire.
The blue light of their moss lamps was far from beaming, but it was enough to thin the gloom. Tarrou, who still looked peaked from blood loss, volunteered to go first. He put his knife between his teeth, got onto his belly, and crawled into the chute like an infant on his elbows, pushing his lamp ahead of him.
When Tarrou’s feet had vanished, Senlin turned to Finn Goll and said, “After you, sir.”
Goll leveled the blunderbuss at Senlin’s chest. “I’m glad to hear the two of you are such fast friends. Though obviously he’s an idiot who doesn’t know how well sound bounces around in here. I won’t lie: A hundred minas would be nice. That’s a drop in the bucket. A big drop. And yet …” Goll’s curled finger tightened about the trigger. His balled chin began to tremble with scarcely bottled rage. “You ruined my life, Tom. You ruined the life I’d made for my family. I know on balance, you’re worth more to me alive than dead. But, oh, it will not take much to tip those scales.” Finn Goll bobbed the gun at the vent. “Now, keep your lips stitched and get in that hole.”
It didn’t seem the time to test Goll’s temper. Pushing his heavy pack ahead of him, Senlin snaked his way into the shaft. The stone was coarse and warm beneath him. The slope was steep enough that he had to push against the sides of the shaft to keep from slipping backward. He began to sweat almost at once, and profusely.
Senlin suffered a moment of self-loathing so intense it felt almost carnal. He had been given so many opportunities. Over and over, ill fate had ruined the woman ahead of him or demolished the man behind him, and he had slipped by unscathed. And what had he done with all his good luck? Nothing. He’d somehow managed to defy the law of the Tower that said what was lost once was lost forever, only to bungle the miracle when it came. He’d made friends only to lose them. He deserved what he got. He deserved worse, and Marat would probably provide it. Just as well. Senlin would adjure his executioners to take their time.
Oh, but self-loathing was just so enticing, so holy, so unassailable! The cynic in him cried, Take my hope! Take my life! Who cares? As if surrender could make up for his failures or help the people he loved. What a lie to think he could whip himself to redemption. What a loathsome lie!
A sudden stream of cool air coursed around him. It chilled the sweat on his back and filled his nostrils with the scent of sky. He recalled that he had friends sailing upon that sky. And it was the same sky that stretched over the desert, the mountains, and the rolling hillsides, and reached all the way to his cottage by the sea.
The thought of home brought to mind an old sailor song about poor catches and bad weather that Marya had loved and that they had sung together in the Blue Tattoo—she with a voice like a nightingale; he with a caw like a crow. He began singing it to himself now, breathing in and savoring the honeyed air. He could not hate himself and love her at the same time. He had to choose to love. Not just once, but again and again for the rest of his life.
From behind him, Finn Goll told him to stop singing, or he’d shoot him in the brains he used for sitting.
Senlin interrupted his song just long enough to tell him No.
The steepest slopes Senlin had ever climbed were the grassy mountains outside of Isaugh. The locals called them “mountains,” though they were objectively hills—a fact that Senlin had once liked to share nearly as much as everyone disliked hearing it. The highest peaks were given quaint monikers by the locals, names like Poppy Pike, Mount Goose, and the Two Picnics, so named because the climb was long enough to make the packing of a second meal advisable. Senlin had undertaken the exercise himself on many occasions. He liked hiking along with a walking stick; he liked feeling the sting in his lungs and the warmth in his thighs from the exertion of the ascent. Truth be told, he thought hills superior to mountains in almost every way. Hills did not require him to crawl along on all fours, nor did they test his faith in the power of ropes, nor scuff his hands on their unforgiving corners. The headmaster of old, who only ever attempted a summit that could be conquered in an afternoon, fancied himself something of an aspiring mountaineer.
The airshafts that snaked through the Tower walls quickly dispelled any pleasure Senlin had ever taken in climbing and any illusion he’d held about his abilities. Every inch of him ached. His hands could not produce calluses fast enough to compete with the sandpaper slopes. The constant act of looking up had knotted several painful kinks in his neck and back, and after the first day, his legs were left with all the elasticity of stovepipes.
The system of vents was like a maze set at an extreme angle. The inclines of the airways varied from uncomfortably steep to just shy of vertical, and they ranged in width f
rom being as broad as a river ford to as narrow as a garden stream. Some stretches were so cramped, he was forced to crawl along on his belly, scouring his elbows and knees in the process. Other passages were so open they tested the limit of their gloamine lamps and forced them to ascend in a zigzag, back and forth like mountain goats.
At first, Senlin was surprised, though he probably shouldn’t have been given the system’s basic function, that the tunnels were so blustery. At times the drafts of cold air that bore down on them were so intense it made his teeth chatter and left him clinging to gaps in the masonry with numb and throbbing fingers. At other points, the desert-hot air coursing up from beneath them was so fierce he thought it might carry him off like a leaf. Oftentimes, the winds clashed violently where the shafts converged. Pocket tornados formed that were strong enough to polish the stone to a glass-like finish.
The wind was sufficient to discourage the growth of gloamine, which meant their lamps were all that stood between them and the madness of utter darkness. If they kept their glowing lichen damp, it would live for weeks before needing to be fertilized or replaced. The greater danger to their light source was accidental collision. If the glass shades that held the lichen ever broke, the wind would sweep away the last light they would ever see.
Beside their lamps, the company’s most valuable assets were the map and the inclinometer. Senlin was in charge of the map. Its complexity was staggering, and its detail often murky. The builders of the ventilation system had not labeled the intersections, of which there were thousands. The only thing that distinguished one artery from another on the map were tiny numbers logging the angle of each slope. The inclinometer was most basically a level that measured the degree of an incline, which they could then use to discern one path from another.
The Hod King Page 33
