A Novel (36 page)

I stared at Tanish, tears streaming down my hot face.

“I have to go now, hummingbird,” I whispered, squeezing his tiny hand. “I'll come back. Unless they kill me, I'll come back. I promise. But there's something I have to do.”

The police couldn't do it, but I, as Andrews and Willinghouse had pointed out so many times, was not police.

*   *   *

I STUDIED THE LINE
of the shed roof where it met the tower and chimney stack. It was a smooth red brick that gave no climbing purchase, but there were drainpipes, and in places there were rungs set into the wall. Two of the lower windows had been bricked up years ago, but the top one was shuttered, and I could see how to get to it, though it would take nerve.

Nerve, I had. Nerve and fire. When the dam broke, more than grief gushed out, and some of what came slicing through those awful waters had teeth.

I watched a jackal prowl along the street, its sleek body low to the ground, its ears pricked, and as it rounded the corner and trotted out of sight, I moved.

After shinning up the downspout to the roof of the shed, I picked my way softly over the slates, moving almost on all fours, low and swift like the jackal. At the point where the blockish tower reared up from the shed, I squatted, listening. The city was as quiet as it would ever get. Somewhere down Bell Street, I could hear the distant clank of machinery as the night shift worked on, and there was an occasional boom from the foghorn at the river mouth, but otherwise the night was still.

There were rungs set into the tower wall, though they had probably not been used since the weavers left, and they were rusted and flaking. I took hold of one, tested it, and pulled myself up. I climbed swiftly till I was forty feet above the roof of the shed, then paused. Higher up, the rungs led to the roof, where the old winding gear had been, but the shuttered window to Morlak's treasure house was on the other side of the tower. A ledge ran around to the window. It was a single brick wide.

I took a breath, then stepped out onto the ledge, my back to the tower and all my weight on my heels. I kept my arms beside me, palms flat to the wall, back slightly arched so that my shoulders brushed up against the brick. I did not look down, not because I was afraid of the height, but because tipping my head might throw off my equilibrium. Right now, I was afraid of nothing. I edged a few inches at a time, out into the night.

I hesitated at the corner, feeling my way around, thinking of nothing but Tanish's face.

Three more feet and I was at the window aperture. I felt the timber of the shutter and the simple iron hook hinges and taking hold of them, pivoted briskly to face the wall. Death waited, hard and hungry on the cobbles below, but I disappointed him. My mind and fingers probed for the crack between the shutters, then I reached into the satchel, which had lately doubled as a cradle but was now just a tool bag again. I produced a slim and serrated metal blade on a wooden handle. I slipped it through the crack near the top, guiding it down till I found the restraining bolt.

But there was no need. The shutters were not closed properly, and the haft for the bolt had been cut. Puzzled, I put the saw away, wrenched the uneven shutters apart, and climbed through.

The night was moonless, and if there were stars, you could not see them through the smog, so the room was utterly dark even with the window open. I paused, feeling my heart starting to thud against my ribs. I had felt no fear perching birdlike on the tower ledge, but being inside it stirred an old dread.

Morlak.

He would be downstairs, sleeping, perhaps still incapable of coming up to catch me, but I felt his presence like a foul and poisonous odor.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, filling my chest, holding it in my lungs for a moment, before blowing it softly out. I did it again, and felt my heart steady a little. I dragged the shutters closed so that anyone who happened to look up from the street would see nothing amiss. They snagged and squeaked, as if out of alignment, but I got them shut.

I took a stick of candle and a metal box with a close-fitting lid from my satchel, drawing from it a single phosphorous match, which I struck on the brick of the windowsill. The match popped and flared white then yellow as the wooden stick took hold. I lit the candle and shook the match out, taking in the room by the uneven light.

It was a cramped space, the walls crudely plastered, just big enough for an untidy bed, a chair, and in the corner, a chest with a heavy padlock.

Easy.

I squatted down, set the candle in a hardening puddle of its own wax, and got to work with the hacksaw.

But this too had been cut. I dragged the lid open and peered in.

The inside of the trunk was divided into two latched compartments. I opened the one on the left and rummaged through books, ledgers, and files before reaching a bundle of pound notes, a bag of coins, and several small pouches of gold and rough-cut stones.

No luxorite.

I opened the second compartment. It contained a single hessian bag twice the size of my satchel. I pulled on the drawstring neck and opened it. Inside was something shapeless and wrinkled, cool to the touch like metal but yielding to pressure: a dull gray foil. I lifted it out onto the chamber floor and began to unwrap the stiff folds. The object inside was roughly spherical, no bigger than a couple of loaves of bread, but heavy as stone.

I peeled back the metal foil and recoiled from a light more brilliant than anything I had ever seen.

For a second, it was as if the tower room had exploded, but silently, the blaze of yellow-white glare causing every object in the chamber, every splinter of the floor, and every irregularity of the plastered walls to cast hard, leaping shadows. Even with my eyes closed and head twisted away, I felt its pale burning presence, and the inside of my eyelids glowed red.

At last,
I thought as I fumbled blindly to re-cover it.

My mind reeled with dizzying exhilaration. I had always known it had been Morlak, and if I acted fast, I could lead Andrews right to him. My heart thrilled to the idea, though I knew it was a poor revenge for Berrit and Tanish even if it was justice as far as the law allowed.

But even there in my one moment of glory, doubt leached my certainty. I thought of the old Mahweni, of Gritt, and the strange, greenish luxorite that had appeared
before
the Beacon went missing.

Stop,
I told myself.
Morlak is guilty. You've seen the proof. The rest will make sense later.…

I stood there, immobile, paralyzed by a sudden uncertainty, and my eyes fell on the crack between the shutters whose lock had been so expertly cut. I thought of Morlak's wound, the injury I gave him that had kept him largely immobilized. He could not have brought the Beacon here himself the night it was stolen because he was out drinking and didn't roll in till morning. And from the moment I fought with him, he had been able to walk—just—but not to climb the tower. Tanish had said so.

And now the voice in my head shifted, became not the mouthpiece of surety and decision, but of doubt and unease.

So what if he didn't bring it here? What if someone else, someone with the climbing skills to take it in the first place, scaled the tower after you had so conveniently wounded him, forced their way in, planted it here to implicate him? He hasn't been up since. He might not even know it is here.…

Why would anyone do that, though? Why would someone steal something of such value only to point the finger at someone else?

Because they hated him so deeply? Or because they wanted the city looking in the wrong direction while an entirely different crime was perpetrated, a crime that would lead to war, devastation, and the restructuring of the entire continent?

I considered this, and suddenly it felt as if I were sinking into deep cold water. I had been sure it was all about Morlak because I hated him and wanted him to be responsible so that he could be punished for all he was, but now I was not so sure. The Beacon was so big, so bright, it had seemed that it must be the center of everything that had happened, but in the chill, dark hollow of my gut, I knew this wasn't true.

It wasn't about the Beacon. It never had been. I had been wrong. Again. I thought of Berrit; of Billy Jennings, the incompetent pickpocket who had made the mistake of trying to help me; of Tanish, my hummingbird apprentice—and the scale of my failure closed over me like drowning.

Not now. You have to go.

Clumsily, I thrust the Beacon back into the hessian sack and latched the compartment. After the brightness of the light, I could see almost nothing. Hands unsteady, I closed the trunk and scraped up the spilled candle wax. I had just gotten to my feet, ready to make my exit, when I heard the tower stairs creak.

It seemed I had not been so quiet as I thought.

I froze, heart in my throat, listening as the sound came again. This time it was accompanied by something between a grunt and a sigh. A human noise. A big man laboring.

Morlak.

I moved for the window, shoving at the shutters, but one would open only a few inches, and the other wouldn't move at all. Something I had done when I forced them open—or something that was done by whoever had broken in last time—had jammed them.

I couldn't get out.

 

CHAPTER

34

I MOVED QUICKLY TO
the corner with my satchel of tools, flattening myself against the cracked plaster as the door flew open.

The floor was suddenly lit by a soft, filtered glow. An oil lamp. Morlak was holding it out in front of him. He came in, pushing the door so wide that it actually hit my shoulder, where it stopped, but he did not seem to notice.

The moment he cleared the doorway, I would slip behind him and out, down the stairs to freedom.

I waited, poised.

Morlak hesitated in the doorway.

I listened, my heart starting to race again, and I realized what he was doing. He was sniffing the air.

The phosphorous match.

The room still held the ghost of its acrid tang. I stifled a gasp, and in that moment, Morlak stepped into the room and slammed the door behind him. It latched, and we were alone together again.

But he had not seen me.

The gang leader made directly for the trunk, lowering himself with difficulty and muttering curses as he saw the broken half of the padlock.

In seconds he would find it. Then he would panic and turn to the door, where he would see me cowering, with nowhere to run. Noiselessly I reached into my satchel, ignored the empty pistol, and took hold of the next thing my fingers found.

The hacksaw.

I could move up behind him, silent as sleep, and sweep the blade across his throat. For years of torment. For his attempted rape. For Berrit. For Billy. And, most of all, for Tanish.

I took a step out into the room, the saw held out from my side like a talisman, a magical thing in which death strained to get out.

And I hesitated. For the torment and what he had tried to do to me, he was certainly guilty, but for the rest? I had thought so. I had wanted to believe so. But now? I was not so sure.

And then the room went white and glaring, as if I had been dropped onto the surface of the sun, as Morlak dragged the Beacon from its foil wrapping, cursing amazedly, and I stepped back, blinded.

I collided with the door and, sightless, fought for the latch. I heard him behind me, shouting and stumbling about, but I had the door open and he was—I was almost sure—at least as surprised by what he had uncovered as I was. I ran. On the second step, I missed my footing, and fell headlong, the satchel spilling open beneath me. Pain burned bright as the Beacon in my head, but I fought to right myself and my already bruised legs felt unbroken. I half ran, half fell down the stairs.

I could still see nothing.

I blundered into a doorjamb, dimly aware of another male voice, dull and confused by sleep, at my elbow, but I kept moving. Eyes squeezed shut, I recognized the smell of the weavers' shed, the edge of oil and unwashed bodies, and I made for it, feeling rather than seeing the cavernous space open up around me. I faltered for a moment, trying to get my bearings in the unnatural darkness, then plunged on. Somewhere a door opened and a boy cried out, “Who's there?”

I adjusted, then picked up speed, heedless of the damage I might do to myself if I ran into something, or somebody. Farther back, still on the stairs, I could hear Morlak bellowing curses.

I ran into the wall, taking most of the impact on my outstretched arms. I felt the brick and, gazing into the blackness, caught the merest shadow of difference two yards to my left. I made for it, and my hands found wood and the metal fittings of the alley door.

I pressed the latch and shouldered it open.

Instantly, the darkness grayed a little, which was enough. I could have walked these streets blindfolded.

I burst into a hard run, feeling nothing because to feel anything would have made me stop. They would come after me, but I had a head start, and they would not know where I was going.

As I ran, I replayed the one thing I felt sure of in my head.

It's not about the Beacon. It never was.

It was about money, of course, and about the deaths of a boy and an old man who no one thought worthy of attention. These were what really mattered, and I felt suddenly ashamed that it had taken me so long to recognize as much.

*   *   *

SUREYNA WAS WAITING FOR
me at her spot on Winckley Street. The lamps were still lit, and the dawn was, for the moment, cool and fresh, but there was broken glass in the street, burned-out carriages on the corner, and shops with their windows shattered and shelves ransacked. And blood. Not a lot. Not yet. But there would be more. “Unrest,” the papers would call it, if there still were papers. The protests were souring, the city splintering along lines of race and faction, and Willinghouse's dire prophecies were coming true. We were falling over the brink, and the blood would run in rivers through the streets long before the Grappoli ever got here.