The Hod King

by Josiah Bancroft

  Even before the plume of water slapped down upon the floor, the chimney cat dropped the deflated pack and settled his attention upon Senlin, frozen and crouching in its shadow.

  It resembled a stoat only in its rough proportions. In all else, it looked like a monster cobbled from a nightmare. Its black hair was as coarse as quills. Its broom of whiskers seemed only to elongate a mouth full of beaming teeth. Bands of muscles writhed beneath its razor fur. John had said the beasts could grow as large as fifteen feet. This one seemed an overachiever. It stood on its hind legs, appearing to study Senlin, much as a diner might take a moment to admire the presentation of a plated meal. The butt of Goll’s blunderbuss jutted from under one of its paws. Its curved talons called to mind a butcher’s hook. But it was the creature’s unblinking gaze that held Senlin’s attention most. Its eyes were bulging, dark, and filmed with a spectral light. The curious sheen of the chimney cat’s eyes swirled like an abalone pearl. Each time it seemed like those colors would fall into the black drain of its pupils, the rainbow revived, and the beautiful stirring began anew.

  A dim and unimportant thought occurred to Senlin: The beast had mesmerized him. He was feeling abnormally tranquil for a man who was about to be eaten.

  A wooden scoop bonked the chimney cat on the snout. Quick as a viper, the beast sprang at him. No, not at him, past him, though Senlin didn’t quite evade all contact. The fiend clipped him with its shoulder. It felt as if someone had swatted him with a cactus. But the pain was enough to release him from his trance.

  Knocked to his knees, Senlin began scuttling away. His only thought was to put something sturdy between himself and the monster. The broad foot of one of the stone mixing bowls was his nearest cover. Expecting any moment to be pounced on and chewed, he was almost surprised when he reached the pedestal. The base was wide enough to conceal him, though he didn’t relish the idea of playing ring-around-the-maypole with a hungry chimney cat. It was only then that he stopped to consider what had allowed him to escape. The beast had turned its focus on Tarrou, who’d hurled the old measuring cup at it.

  John dove into the narrow space under the spring’s trough, and the chimney cat attempted to plunge in after him. It was foiled, at least somewhat, by the posts that supported the long receptacle and by John’s scurrying. He crawled on his elbows through a thick bunting of cobwebs as the chimney cat chased along after him, with its head turned to one side. It snapped at John’s hands and feet, missing him by a hairsbreadth again and again.

  Whether he realized it or not, Tarrou was leading the beast straight toward Goll, still stunned and soaking in the bath he’d been thrown into. Senlin saw it was only a matter of seconds before the chimney cat came upon Finn, served up like a dumpling in a bowl.

  Senlin made a dash for the blunderbuss, but in his haste, he lost his footing on the slimy ledge. He slid into the weapon, kicking it across the outpost. Finn Goll gave a terrified shout. The chimney cat had spotted him and had placed a sinewy arm on either side of the basin, pinning him in. Seeming to savor the catch, the fiend sawed its head back and forth, spattering the half-submerged Goll in gobs of slaver.

  There was no time to retrieve the weapon, so Senlin picked up the only thing at hand and threw it with all his might. The gloamine lamp burst when it struck the beast on the back of its skull. The precious moss flitted away like the down of a dandelion. The empty cage clanked upon the floor.

  The chimney cat dropped onto all fours and came at Senlin in a serpentine rush. It moved with startling speed. Senlin turned and ran along the lip of the shelf. He decided to make for the wall where the old equipment hung on pegs above the blunderbuss. He wondered if the gun would still fire after all the abuse, or if he’d be better off arming himself with one of the stirring paddles. They seemed hardly sufficient for fending off a wire-haired devil, but even an oar was preferable to bare-knuckling the beast if the gun failed to fire.

  But when Senlin saw the rope they’d descended by, hanging just off of the edge not far from him, he changed his mind. The sound of claws striking the floor was so close behind him now, he doubted he’d ever reach the wall anyway. He focused only on the dangling cord as he swerved a few paces deeper into the outpost before driving out again at the brink with all the energy he could muster. He leapt at the rope, catching it with enough force to swing far out into the darkness. He half expected to strike a wall, but there was nothing at the limit of his flight except a second of suspension, a moment of absolute stillness. Then he began to fall back the way he’d come.

  He twisted about to face his fate and found the beast had reared onto its haunches in anticipation of his return. It occurred to Senlin he had turned himself into a cat toy. He saw he would fly straight into the chimney cat’s waiting maw if he did nothing, so he did the only thing he could: He let go.

  His momentum still carried him into the beast, but his trajectory sank enough to fall out of the way of its fangs. Senlin struck the chimney cat feetfirst in the neck hard enough to rock it back on its tail.

  Crashing down on his back and elbows at the cliff edge, Senlin suffered a shock of pain that stole his breath. But he hadn’t time to wince. He rolled to one side, even as the beast attacked the ground he’d just occupied. Senlin scooted on his rump, pedaling his heels to propel himself away, though much, much too slowly. The chimney cat rose above him. Senlin turned away. He didn’t want to watch the gory arrival of his end.

  Dripping with water and battered in slime, Finn Goll pointed the blunderbuss over Senlin’s head.

  The gun boomed. In the near dark, the muzzle blast was almost volcanic, and for a split second Senlin thought it might be enough to kill the fiend or at least drive it away.

  Then lead pellets bounced upon Senlin’s head and shoulders like a handful of gravel thrown by a weak child. Finn Goll called Sodiq a “muddy gusset” and dashed the useless weapon upon the ground.

  But the misfire was enough to startle the beast and perhaps blind it a little. It thrashed about, whipping its great length back and forth. The middle of its tail struck one of the mixing pedestals, budging it from its ancient spot and knocking the bowl loose. The basin split against the floor with a thunderous crack that seemed to shock the already unsettled beast. The gloamine lamp that had been resting inside it shattered, spilling its contents in a vanishing halo of light.

  As the beast gyred about its own center, searching for some relief from the noise and light, Senlin got to his feet. Finding their second rope in a heap near the pack, he snatched it up and began knotting a wide noose at one end. While he worked, he saw that Tarrou had armed himself with an oar and was running at the blinded beast with an unsettling lack of deliberation. John bellowed as he chopped down with the edge of his paddle at one of the chimney cat’s paws. The beast’s cry was as sour as a yowl and as loud as a foghorn.

  It swiveled about, snapping in John’s direction, but the big man had already leapt away. Senlin took advantage of the brute’s lowered head to get the lasso around it.

  “Distract it, John! Distract it!” Senlin shouted as he ran backward with the other end of the line.

  “Here, puss!” Tarrou shouted and batted the beast on its ear.

  Its senses returning, the chimney cat lashed out at John a second time, this time catching his stirring oar cleanly in its mouth. The old wood splintered, leaving the big man holding little more than a stick, which he threw. By the time the broken handle had bounced off the top of the monster’s skull, John had already turned to flee, though his injured leg turned his sprint into a lope.

  Senlin scrambled to get the other end of the line wrapped and knotted about the decapitated column. He’d hardly had a chance to tie it off before the rope went rigid, and the pillar fell from its plinth, onto its side. At the other end of the leash, the chimney cat bucked, surprised to have been pulled short of John’s head, even as it attempted to nip it from his shoulders.

  “Goll, help me!” Senlin shouted, pressing upon the barrel of rock. “Push
it off! Push it off!”

  The two set their shoulders against the squat column, and together they rocked it until it began to roll toward the yawning precipice. With nowhere left to retreat, John was left pelting the beast with whatever he could lay a hand on—shovel, paddle, dipper, and trowel, none of which seemed to do much more than delay the beast with brief annoyance.

  When the stone drum tumbled from the ledge and vanished into the gloom, Senlin wondered if the weight would be sufficient, wondered if the rope would hold. If it wasn’t, or it didn’t, then the only remaining uncertainty would be the order in which they were eaten.

  But the line held, and the weight was enough to snatch the chimney cat onto its back. It slid along the slime-slicked stone, scratching at the air. In an attempt to get its claws under it again and reanchor itself, it wriggled onto its side. In another second, it might’ve caught the floor and saved itself from the fall, but it ran out of ground before it could get its footing and slipped over the edge with a grisly roar.

  They listened, and after a moment, heard the hammer strike of the pedestal on the distant floor, then the softer impact of the animal a split second later.

  The pitch of the chimney cat’s fatal cry left Senlin with the uneasy feeling that he had not so much slayed a dragon as he had killed a rare creature who’d done nothing but obey its instinct. He felt no swell of pride, no sense of triumph, only the buzzing relief to find that he was still alive.

  They took stock of their losses. The beetle cakes would be missed the least. They discussed the possibility of eating the tiny luminescent shrimp in the trough. But after some deliberation, and a lack of a volunteer to be the first to try the ghostly shellfish, they abandoned the idea. Better to go hungry than to be poisoned. All agreed they could last a few days without food, and that would be enough for them to reach Mola Ambit. They still had the rope they’d descended by, one blanket, one waterskin, and vitally, one lamp. The map, which had remained tucked in the pack, had not been lost, but the inclinometer was smashed beyond repair.

  Even as Finn Goll bemoaned the overwhelming loss, Senlin began to cobble together a replacement. He didn’t have the resources to build a spirit level, but he could fashion a plumb line, which could serve a similar purpose. He used the hollow handle of a scoop for a scope, the broken end of a paddle for a measuring board, threads pulled from his sarong for a line, and fashioned a plumb bob from a lump of mortar. He lashed the pieces together with wire from the broken lanterns and used Tarrou’s knife to make regular notches in the board to create a crude scale. He explained that they didn’t need to know the true angle of any shaft, only the relative angles of an intersection. So it didn’t matter if a slope was in actuality 32 degrees or 51 degrees, so long as they could keep their place on the map, they could use his makeshift inclinometer to distinguish which slope was the steepest, which the most gradual, and compare those general readings to the map.

  Even after Senlin explained the basic premise of how they’d use his crude replacement, Goll was unsure how it could possibly work. Senlin could only ask that Goll believe he did not wish to be lost in the walls any more than Goll did.

  Tarrou, who had a better grasp of what Senlin was proposing, pointed out, “But if we make a wrong turn, we probably won’t realize it until it’s much too late.”

  “True. But it’s better than picking a course blindly,” Senlin said, testing the fasteners that held his instrument together. Satisfied it wouldn’t break with the first use, he was in the process of wrapping the inclinometer in their remaining blanket when Tarrou noticed his wound. Senlin’s chest was marred with livid strokes, like the lashes of a whip, from when the chimney cat had brushed him aside. Rivulets of drying blood seeped from the deepest gouges. John asked if perhaps they shouldn’t clean the wound and use the blanket to bandage him, but Senlin insisted the inclinometer was more precious at the moment.

  “I suppose you expect me to be grateful now that we’ve saved each other’s lives, and just go along with your half-cocked plan,” Goll said, working to scrape the coat of slime from his bare legs.

  “Not at all,” Senlin said. “We’ll make for the trail, and anyone who wishes to get off can. I’ll carry on to Mola Ambit on my own.” He topped off the waterskin from the spring. “It’s not that I can’t use a willing ally, Goll. I just have no need for a hostile companion.”

  “You’re acting as if I should be grateful for the chance to die with you in Marat’s camp. Allies usually have something to offer each other, Tom.” Finn washed his hands in the trough.

  “Indeed,” Senlin said, apparently unconcerned.

  “All right! All right! I’ll bite. Tell me more about these friends you have. You say they have a ship and money. Do they have a name as well?”

  “Do you remember the woman with the engine arm who was in your port the night it was destroyed?” Senlin slid the bundled inclinometer into the pack.

  “Didn’t it start with an E? Eveline? Ermine? Ester? She was Billy Lee’s first mate, wasn’t she?” Finn Goll squinted at the memory. “As I remember, he called her a ‘Wakeman in waiting,’ whatever that means. God, that dolt liked to talk when he drank.”

  “She was my first mate aboard the Stone Cloud, which I borrowed from Lee. She’s been promoted since then. She’s captain of the State of Art now.”

  “You mean the Sphinx’s flagship?” Tarrou said, pawing his jaw in wonderment. “Even in the dorms of the Colosseum, it was all anyone was talking about last week.” When Goll continued to look puzzled, Tarrou relayed the news that the long-dormant Sphinx was flexing his muscles again, starting, apparently, with the relaunch of his most magnificent and imposing warship. “Tom, you’re telling me you know the captain of the State of Art?”

  “Very well,” Senlin said.

  “And the Sphinx? You haven’t met the Sphinx, have you?” John pressed, smiling in ready disbelief.

  “I’ve made his acquaintance.”

  Goll and Tarrou looked at each other with a mixture of amazement and incredulity. “No, Tom. That’s too much.” Tarrou waved at the air as if trying to disperse a puff of smoke.

  “As may be. I’m happy to drop you off on the trail, too.”

  “Can you prove it?” Goll asked, setting his fists on his hips. “Do you have evidence of any of this?”

  “No. I can’t prove it to you. But I can to Marat. He was a Wakeman once, and I think he’ll be very interested to hear how the Sphinx is doing at present.”

  “If it’s true, these are some very big players you’re talking about, Tom,” John said. “Are you sure you’re not in over your head?”

  “I think the question you should both ask yourselves is, do you want to throw your lot in with a man who’s willing to fight chimney cats with you, or do you want to face the black trail on your own?”

  “Would the Sphinx be willing to open his purse for a useful man in need?” Goll asked.

  “I think it’s safe to say the Sphinx rewards his friends.”

  Goll laughed. “Are you sure you want to offer yourself up as proof of that?”

  Goll’s barbed question seemed to bring several things into relief at once for Senlin, and with a vividness that resembled an epiphany.

  Senlin saw clearly that the Sphinx had put him in an impossible position quite on purpose. She had not believed he would follow orders in Pelphia. No, she had dispatched him to the city where his wife was imprisoned because she knew he would not do as he was told. He was too stubborn for that. He was the sort of man who climbed immeasurable towers and got to the bottom of bottomless libraries. Yet despite his obstinance, Senlin had proved time and time again to be adaptable and resourceful in a manner few were.

  The pill-like spider the Sphinx had made him swallow, a thing that she claimed could be used to locate him should he get lost, was like a tether, a sort of fishing line. Which made him the lure. She had cast him into Pelphia not knowing exactly what she would catch but believing that he would thrash about like bait, as
he indeed had. Senlin doubted the Sphinx would be surprised to learn that he had been thrown onto the black trail. In the past, he’d proven he could change skins easily enough: headmaster, thief, bookkeeper, pirate, and spy. Why not a hod? Why not a zealot? Now he was in a position to lead her to Marat’s new camp, something that she would surely wish to know.

  All of this suggested to him that there was a chance, albeit a small one, that things were not as desperate as they seemed. Perhaps he was not so lost.

  Smirking at his own optimism, Senlin said, “You know, it’s strange to say, but I think I may be exactly where the Sphinx wants me.”

  Part III

  The Gold Watch

  Chapter One

  Sadly, the secret to longevity may very well be mediocrity. We see evidence of this in the history of the menu of Café Tertre. The dreadfully inventive specials—the slink pie and lemon soup—were seen once and never heard from again. The perfectly succulent ambrosia krill, which lit up its bisque with an ethereal light, was so popular we relished the crustacean into extinction. But the merely palatable, unremarkable pigeon pie will linger on the board forever.

  —Oren Robinson of the Daily Reverie

  Ferdinand thundered at Edith with all the restraint of a hound who’d broken free of his leash. At a sprint and with his head ducked, the Sphinx’s doorman looked alarmingly like a train engine—chest like a cowcatcher; head like a tunnel lamp; jets of steam blooming from the pistons of his arms. The Sphinx’s elevating corridor shuddered under the doorman’s approach. His elbow clipped a sconce, and the brass gooseneck flattened against the wall like a poorly hammered nail.