by Deck Davis
“Maybe, but the Rats’ Palace is no place to go for a wander.”
“Henwright hasn’t left the academy grounds for years,” said Jakub. “The guy’s a hermit after his classes end. He doesn’t even leave the academy for holidays. I don’t think he’d have bought the artificed gum to put on the letter himself, so I’m wondering if the same guys who tracked it, gave it Henwright in the first place so he could pass it on to me.”
Witas moved away from the shelves. “It’s worth a try, but we better go see this corpse first.”
“Here,” said Archibald, holding out the soul necklace. The crack was just a scratch now. The necklace still looked beaten up and wasn’t as flashy as his old one, but it looked like it’d hold essence.
“Twenty gold,” said Archibald.
He widened his eyes at the price. He only had 39 gold in his bag; this guy wanted more than half of it for a repair?
“I thought Witas was your friend? What about friend’s rates?” said Jakub.
“Those are friend’s rates,” said Archibald.
Jakub paid him and took the necklace. Now all he needed was to find something newly dead so he could take its soul essence.
20
After Witas and the rude necro left, Archibald had just started working on the wind-up duck again when his shop bell trilled. The sound brought conflicted feelings up in him in a way he never expected a simple bell to be capable of.
One, happiness that he might have a new customer.
Two, annoyance that he couldn’t even find the time to finish the work he’d taken on for his existing clients.
He’d been meaning to hire an assistant for a while, and he had an idea about who to ask. There was a boy who lived in Dispolis, one of the street urchins, except where most of them weren’t worth the air in their lungs, this one was different.
Without being asked, this boy had taken other orphaned children under his wing, protecting them like a mother bird. The boy deserved something better for a life; he deserved a steady job, and a chance and being legitimate. If not…well, street life didn’t have the highest life expectancy, did it?
“Archibald,” said the new customer.
A man walked through the shop, approaching the counter and leaning on it. Although the man was smaller than Archibald, he was still intimidating.
This was Studs Godwin, a veteran of the Queen’s Eyes, which was a unit of her majesty’s army that dealt with subterfuge and information, and who obtained it in all manner of ways.
If you believed the rumors, Studs had been part of the inquisitors, but had been discharged when he took their forceful methods of persuasion too far.
This was a man who you didn’t mess around with. Archibald could never be his usual tetchy self when this guy walked into his shop. It wasn’t just because he knew what Studs and his friends did with the people they abducted; it was that unlike the others two members of the group, Studs got a perverse kick out of it.
“I’m expecting a shipment of mana in next Thursday,” said Archibald, hoping to get rid of him. “You’ll be better coming back then, if you’re here for the usual.”
“That’s not why I’m here,” said Studs.
His voice was incredibly high, enough that he easily carried soprano notes in the Dispolis choir every fourth Saturday, when they had a show playing.
Yep, most days of the month Studs was a tougher-than-leather punk who committed secret acts of torture for Hackett Lee, his leader. But on rare days, you’d find him in the back row of the Gyre Chapel choir, singing songs about angles, light, and the way of the spirit.
Archibald knew better than say anything about Studs’ voice, though. He’d seen that once in the Boarhead tavern; Rummy Holgate had gulped down too many ciders, and he’d mocked Studs while they played cards.
Slamming his cards on the table, Rummy had said in a mocking copy of Studs’ high voice, “That’s my hand! Cough up your pennies, gents.”
The look Studs gave him turned the tavern into a freezer, practically spreading icicles along the rafters.
Nothing happened that night except Studs sipping his drink, eyeing Rummy like a demon smelling a virgin soul.
Nothing happened for a month. Two months.
“He’s forgotten about it,” said the innkeeper, when Rummy finally dared show his face again. “Just watch your stupid mouth next time you get drunk.”
And it was still quiet for a third month, then a fourth.
One night in July, the Greenoakes neighbourhood of Dispolis was woken to a scream. It came from Rummy ’s house, but Rummy, two miles away in the Boarhead tavern, didn’t hear it.
When guardsmen stormed his house, they found his wife in bed, the sheets splattered with blood.
The skin on her right hand had been flayed off and left in a nearly-folded pile on her bedside cabinet, along with a note that read, ‘and that’s my hand.’
Studs spent two days in the guardship cells, before being released without charges. Unlike most people who spent time at her majesty’s leisure, he wasn’t haggard or bruised at the end of his stay. The guards didn’t dare lay a finger on him.
When asked about it, Studs shrugged and said in his high voice, “I guess I must have friends looking out for me.”
And that was true, because not one week later, Studs gained temporary employment with the guardship itself. They brought him in to help with some of the silent criminals, men and women whom had no evidence and against them and wouldn’t confess, and they needed Studs to get them to admit what they did.
That was why even Archie, a man too old to care what people thought, watched his words – and the tone he said them in – around Studs.
“We need to talk,” said Studs, holding the wind-up duck.
Archie felt his chest tighten; the noblewoman was coming back for it soon, and pleasing her would mean recommendations to all her snobby friends. Studs had the dexterity of a horse trying to build a house of cards with its hooves, and if he broke the duck…
Archie couldn’t say anything though. Instead, he left the counter. “I take it this is a door locked, blinds closed conversation?” he said.
“Do we have any other type?”
Archibald closed the blinds and turned the key in the lock.
“I heard that you had a visitor,” said Studs.
“This is a shop; I have many. Which one do you mean?”
“You know which one, damn it. An outcast from the academy.”
Archibald nodded. “He came in with the Black Cleric.”
“He’s making friends already. Hmm. What did they want?”
“The boy needed his soul necklace fixing. It had a crack across the face of it, so he needed it artificed.”
“And did you?”
“Of course not. I sealed the crack so that it’ll hold essence, but I didn’t seal it completely. Over time the essence will drain. It was a hard balance; fixing it to keep him off guard, but making sure he doesn’t have full access to his necromancy.”
“Very good, artificer. You’ve proven to be useful in your own doddering way. Did they speak of their plans?”
“Only that the guardship called the cleric in to use his Blacktyde hoodoo on a corpse, and he needed a necro to help. They’re headed there now.”
Studs walked toward the door. It always played out this way; when he got what he wanted, he left without a good bye. So rude.
“Oh, there was something else,” said Archibald.
Studs spun around. “Yes?”
“They’re going into the Rats’ Palace afterwards. They’re onto you, in a way. It was you who gave him the letter, wasn’t it? The artificed one?”
“Be careful what you ask me, artificer. You don’t want to swim into waters too deep for you.”
Studs unlocked the door and slipped out into the streets, and Archibald soon lost sight of him in the crowd.
He picked up the wind-up duck and his tinker screwdriver and set to work, quickly losing himself in it.
21
The guardship headquarters was supposed to set an example to the people. Placed in the geographical center of Dispolis, it was the tallest building in the city, and by far the best maintained.
Queen Patience’s coffers might have been running low, but when she had first come to power aged 24, she had given her advisors an order.
“If the people see the guardship building in an ill-state, they will think ill about the guards themselves. Fix it up, make it stand prouder than a sailor who has just fucked a whore.”
So the story went, anyway. Jakub could believe parts of it; he liked to believe that the Queen had come up with the idea of making the guardship building look good, but he didn’t believe she had such a filthy mouth.
“This way,” said a guard.
The guard escorting them through the headquarters was tall man and he wore the standard guardship steel chestplate and helmet, but once he’d gotten inside the building, he held his helmet against his side.
As Jakub and Witas followed him through the corridors and toward the morgue, they drew a number of sour stares from men and women in similar armor.
“Get used to it,” said Witas. “They’re always like this. Anyone who wanders through the station with a glyphline tattoo and who isn’t part of the academy gets this kind of treatment.”
“They don’t know that we’re here to help?”
“They’re like a rich guy with a wife half his age - jealous and distrustful. They want what we have, but the idea scares them, too. It’s a fact of life that people without magic might grow up around it, they might tolerate it, but they’ll never be comfortable with it. That’s why bastards like Bendeldrick can publish books filled with hateful horseshit, and still find themselves with followers.”
“Surely the guards haven’t read Bendeldrick’s book?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“Through here, lads,” said the guard. “Watch your step; it’s slippery at the bottom. One of the bodies we brought in earlier was leaking.”
“Leaking? Gods, man, don’t you lot clean up?” said Witas.
While Witas seemed disturbed by a drippy corpse, Jakub wouldn’t have paid it any attention if it were just him. Death was rarely clean; even the most peaceful, pass-away-in-your-sleep deaths came with their messes and stains.
“Just hold the handrail, that’s all,” said the guard.
The air turned colder as they walked down the steps and into the basement beneath the headquarters.
The queen’s coffers hadn’t extended to decorating down there, it seemed. The stone walls were painted white, but judging by the parts that had chipped or crumbled away, it’d been a while since anyone had cared for them.
A chill pervaded in the room, one that seemed to latch onto any uncovered skin like a leech. Jakub felt it slither on his neck, so he buttoned his overcoat and flicked his collar up, covering himself.
“Poor bastard,” said Witas, crossing into the center of the room.
The pickpocket had been laid out on a metal gurney. He was in two parts, pulverised at the waist from where the train had thundered over him.
“Makes me sick,” said Witas. “This is what it comes down to? A kid, laying there like this?”
“You okay?”
“I never get used to it. Not like you necros. How do you stay so calm?”
“The academy makes us take de-sen-”
“De-sensitization classes. Yep, Ian used to tell me. Let’s get to it. You’re up first.”
Jakub took his soul necklace out. On the way to the guardship headquarters, they’d stopped by the river bank, visiting a wooden dock where half a dozen fisherman sat with their lines cast into the water.
When the fisherman caught something, they bashed its head on the dockside and tossed each one onto an ever-growing pile, while announcing the type of each one.
“Pike!”
“Trout!”
“Halibut!”
A kid, scrawny and covered in fish guts, would collect each one and put it in a separate pile according to species.
Jakub had drained soul essence from the fish. He didn’t get much essence from the pike and trout, but he’d got enough to fill his necklace halfway.
The weird thing was, his necklace wasn’t half-full here in the basement. He hadn’t cast any spells, yet some of the blue light had drained away. Only a sliver, but it was still strange.
“I thought you said Archibald was the best artificer in town?” he said.
“Never said he was the best, just that he gives me friend’s-rates, and he knows when to keep his mouth shut. What’s wrong?”
“Something’s up with my necklace. It’s not holding the essence properly.”
“You need to go get some more?”
“No, I should have enough for Last Rites.”
“Come on then; we can find out how this kid died and then collect our pay.”
This was just a job for Witas, but Jakub felt a sense of urgency, maybe even dread. This kid, spread out in two halves on the gurney, was supposed to be him.
Henwright had given Jakub the letter, and he was becoming surer that he’d sent him into a trap.
But whoever had killed this kid hadn’t banked on a necromancer being able to see what they did. Jakub was going to find out, he was going to look at their face and burn it into his memory, and then he’d hunt the bastard down.
“Ready?” said Witas.
Jakub nodded. “Enjoy,” he said.
He touched the Resurrection glyphline tattoo on his wrist and then spoke the spellword of Last Rites.
A rectangle of light formed beside the gurney. Colors streamed into it, hazy at first but then forming into something solid until they were seeing the pickpocket’s last few minutes. Right beside that, a haze of text floated in the air.
*Necromancy EXP Gained!*
[IIIIIIIIIII ]
22
The first thing Jakub saw when he watched the last few minutes of boy’s life was a room. The walls were like the basement of the guardship headquarters; crumbled, dirty, ready to fall down. It was only a row of windows along the top of the wall that gave away the fact that this was somewhere different.
The panes were dirty, but Jakub could see an alleyway just beyond. There was something glowing, maybe a lamp in the window of the building opposite.
“Recognize the alleyway?” said Jakub.
Witas sucked in his cheeks. “Nope. Could be anywhere in Dispolis.”
A person stepped into view. It was a tall figure, wearing grey robes and with a mask over their face. The mask was ceramic with darkened eyes and red cheeks, the kind rich people wore to costume parties.
“Hello,” said the figure.
It was a man, and his accent placed him from Dispolis, but that was all Jakub could garner.
The man kneeled so he was at eye-level with the boy and so was, in effect, looking straight at Jakub. It was as though he knew that Jakub would be watching this.
“I know you can see me now,” said the man. “Last Rites will give you, what, two minutes of this boy’s life? Three? Of course, you’ll only see the end. No doubt you thought you would see something else, didn’t you? That you’d see me kill him, maybe catch a glimpse of my face while the boy breathed his last breaths. We aren’t so careless, novice.”
The man stood up and moved out of eyeshot now. Sounds came from the right side of the room. The boy tried to move his head, but the view only wavered a centimetre.
“They must have bound his head,” said Witas.
The man moved back into view, this time with a suitcase. He opened it to show a neatly-arranged row of coins, each a different color and shape. He picked one up and displayed it.
“I thought you might enjoy my collection. This is a Spenforth; I found it from a trader in the Gospell Isles. It’s quite rare, in that…”
And that was it. For the next 90 seconds, the man displayed his coins, giving the backstory for each; where he got them,
who from, how much they were worth.
“It’s almost time,” said a woman, out of eyeshot.
The man put a coin back in his briefcase. “Three minutes?”
“Almost.”
“Then kill him.”
A knife appeared in view, right by the kid’s face. Jakub had just enough time to see the steel glint before it was stabbed toward the boy, and the Last Rites image disappeared.
23
“What the hell did I just see?” said Witas.
“Last Rites shows what a person sees in their last few minutes of their life. Mine didn’t used to come with sound, until I levelled it up.”
“I know what Last Rites is, Jakub. I’ve dealt with enough necros in my time. When Ian earned it, he used to bring dead mice and stuff home and show me how they copped it. That’s not what I’m asking.”
“He knew that they’d bring in a necromancer,” said Jakub. “We’re not dealing with a bunch of idiots; they were expecting to find me with the letter. When they didn’t, they decided to send a message.”
“What’s so special about you?”
Jakub paced around the room, his pulse pounding. “None of this was random; Henwright set me up, and there’s a reason these guys wanted to find me and not just some random pickpocket. The questions are why did they want me, and why did Henwright do this?”
“There’s a lot of whys,” said Witas. “We need to go to the academy. They’ll string Henwright up by his balls.”
“He’s one of the oldest members of the faculty. He served as a necromancer in King Holren’s army, before Queen Patience got the throne. Whereas me, I’m just a novice who got expelled for fucking up his first assignment. They’re not going to believe me.”
“It won’t just be you.”
“And you…you’re…what? A black cleric? What does that even mean? You’re not part of the church anymore; that’s clear.”
“It’s a long story.”
“All the same, turning up with you isn’t gonna boost my credibility. All we’ll do is show our hand; we’d be letting Henwright know we’re onto him.”
