Dead of Veridon (18 page)

"Not quite. But he went well beyond the usual borders of the empire. Some sort of trade agreement. They were out of communication for weeks. And when he returned, there was something different about him." A decision resolved behind Billy's eyes. He took his hands off the bottle and folded them on the bar in front of him. "He never indicated anything odd happened on the trip until months later. That's when the visions started."

"We could just cut to the marrow and say that he's going mad," Wilson said. He took the bottle of whiskey and poured himself another. "Here, let me prophesy, tell me how I do. Alexander has seen visions of his dead son, his wife, his lost grandchildren and maybe even one Jacob Burn. He regrets betraying the one, losing the other and alienating the last, in no particular order." The anansi sipped at his whiskey and smiled. "Let's be honest. Alexander Burn is single-handedly responsible for the demise of his family and the loss of its prestige in the Council. This place is falling apart, and it's entirely his fault. Frankly I'm shocked he didn't go mad years ago."

"You shouldn't be so glib about this," Billy said, bitterly.

"No, you shouldn't be so serious about it. I know you're loyal to the man, but he's gone off the rails. What are we going to see if we go upstairs, eh? Does old Alexander walk around in penitent's garb, tearing at the few remaining wisps of his hair and crying out to the darkness? Or has he gone for something more dramatic?"

"That is my father you're talking about," I said. "Maybe we should give him a chance to explain himself?"

Billy sighed, staring at the floor. "No, you have it right. He's fashioned himself a... well. A costume."

"A costume," Wilson crooned happily. "Oh, that's grand. Tell me, is it the robes of a king, or a jester, or maybe one of the Celestes? Or, maybe, just maybe, old Alexander goes around in women's things? Please tell me it's women's things."

"He mutters a lot about fires in the city, and the dead. And sometimes he's right about things, weeks before they happen." Billy covered his face with his hand. "Sometimes it seems like he's talking to the dead, or those who are about to die, or have been dead for generations. And he's taken to wearing a mask. Black. There are words across the face of it, but I don't know the language."

I didn't hear the glass snap in my hand, but I felt the bite of the whiskey as it mixed with the blood lacing its way down my wrist. I turned to look at Wilson, but he was gone, heading to the stairs. I followed. Billy stayed at the bar, talking to us as we left, but I couldn't hear what he was saying.

Chapter Nine

The Two Voices

L
IKE MOST HOMES
of a certain age, the Manor Burn had more rooms than the family had ever used. The ambitions of the architect outstretched the progeny of the elder Burns, and whole wings had alternately been shuttered and rehabilitated in the generations my family had been living here. As a child I used to make a game of the empty chambers, searching for ghosts or treasure, or making up stories about the ancestors who'd once lived in those dusty rooms.

This only got worse as the family's fortunes declined. No servants meant no servant quarters. No parties meant no formal dining room. No money meant no library, no stockhouse, no stables. All of those rooms had been sealed away or just left empty, until the Manor Burn was mostly a graveyard of bedrooms and corridors and closets.

So when Billy said that father was upstairs, I assumed that meant in one of the recently lived-in sections of the house. Before I left, my father and mother made their quarters in the master suites, just off the solar on the second floor. I found it abandoned. The solar itself looked well used, but not recently. I wondered if someone had been squatting in the semi-outdoor space, judging by the bedroll and primitive fire in one corner. That's where Billy found us.

"Those are his," he said. "When he came back from the upriver, he couldn't stand to be away from the stars. So he claimed." Billy toed the bedroll. I couldn't imagine my rotund father sleeping out here, on the ground. "I think something about the house frightened him. The way his eyes moved, always looking in corners, down empty halls. I should have known something was going on. Things have been so strange."

"Where is he, Billy?" I asked sharply. Billy collapsed a little bit.

"Follow me. Just" - he held up a hand - "just don't judge him."

"I think it's going to be lady's things," Wilson whispered behind me. I shushed him, then nodded my assent to Billy. The old servant led us deeper into the house, and higher up.

These were corridors I hadn't seen in a long time. Even with the thrumming power of the Deep Forge at our feet, it was difficult to heat these spaces in the winter. Besides, any scrap of power that went into the house was a scrap that wasn't being sold to the city. And while the market had collapsed, the rates people were willing to pay now a mere whisper of what they had once been, every scrap counted. More than ever, now.

Billy took us about as high up as the manor went. I remembered some of these rooms from my childhood wanderings. Especially the room where we stopped: the grand solar. Its glass dome was speckled with wooden planks, where the tiny jewel-like panes of glass had fallen out over the years. Somewhere along the way, even this mediocre repair work had ceased, and much of the dome blinked up into the sky. I was startled to realize that it was full night, stars glittering down at us through the dome. There was little light in the grand solar, other than what washed in from the city outside. Billy went to a side cabinet and began fumbling with a frictionlamp.

"No engines, Williamson. Leave us in the dark."

The voice came from the center of the room. Unquestionably my father's, and different from what I was expecting. With all these stories of madness and prophecy, I expected to hear his voice tinged with hysteria or disease. Instead, he sounded tired. Much like he sounded in the bar, each time he'd brought me there to describe the depth of his disappointment, either in me or the world. Billy stepped away from the cabinet.

"You have visitors, your lordship."

"How many years have you been with me? 'Lordship'?" A shadow moved in the dark, coming closer. "Since when do we... Ah. I see. You have brought me the boy."

"Hi, dad," I said. Silence answered me. The darkness swelled as my eyes struggled to adjust. Now that my father was still, I couldn't even be sure of where he was standing. Too many shadows, and nothing to distinguish his from any other. Finally his form turned away from me and disappeared back toward the center of the room. I gave Billy a nervous look, then followed.

"We came to talk to you, dad. Wilson and I. There's something going on, and I've heard some things. Stuff about you, and the Council." It felt weird talking to my dad about Council business. Usually we just yelled at one another until someone got tired and left. "And then Billy said some stuff, about Noah. He said that you were hearing voices."

That stopped him. I couldn't see what he was wearing, other than to know that it wasn't his usual suit. He had lost some weight, that's for sure. Even his face was obscured in the darkness. When he turned to me, all I could see was a black expanse.

"Voices. Two of them," he muttered. "Two voices. And then one. You probably think I'm mad."

"I should get a light," Billy said from the door. He rattled away down the hall. Wilson stood silently behind me, barely breathing. I crossed my arms and faced my father.

"I don't know what to think. Angela Tomb seems to think she has you around her finger."

"Tomb be damned. The Council be damned." He retreated from me, drifting back to the center of the room. My eyes were nearly adjusted to the light. He was wearing robes, and something over his face. "What have they told you about me?"

"Curiously, nothing. Angela made a special point of not discussing you."

"And why are you talking to that bitch again?" He asked it without spite, without violence.

"She got me out of jail." I moved to the cabinet, where Billy had been assembling the frictionlamp. "Listen, Alexander. I would really like to have some light in here."

"Not with those machines!" he snapped, and I found the edge of hysteria I had been expecting. He got dangerously close to the light from the hallway. I could almost see what was over his face. He realized it, and shied back. "I won't stand those machines. I wouldn't let you up here if your engine were still working, Jacob, son or no son. Even now, I can hear it in your chest, mewling like a sick cat."

"The cogwork is talking to you?" Wilson asked. There was a touch of reverence in his voice. "You can hear them talking?"

"It's not the engines, no. I know what you're thinking, bug." Alexander strode forcefully away. Once his back was to us, his hands went to his face. I hear metal and leather, straps, and then the shuffling of fabric. "I can hear it in your voice. No, it's something else. Talking through the engines. Some damn voice, like the dead, singing up from their graves."

I wrinkled my brow and looked back at Wilson. He was limned in the light from the hallway. My father wasn't a poetic man, even at his best. I couldn't read Wilson's expression, though, so I pressed on.

"Billy said this all started while you were upriver." I said, walking toward him. "On some kind of business for the Council. You mind telling me what you were about, up there?"

"Trade routes. The Council has become restless, Jacob." He turned towards me, and I could see that whatever had been covering his face was no longer there. "Restless and hungry. They are no longer content with controlling the routes down the water fall. They want the routes upriver, too. And they sent me to make the deal."

"Why you?" I asked. Not fifteen feet from him, now. Getting closer. I had half a mind to try to subdue him, drag him out into the light. Something. This was just too creepy.

"Because it was dangerous," he answered. Alexander was standing next to some kind of furniture, a lounge or a bed, resting one hand on it. "Because we're expendable to them."

"Since when were members of the Council expendable?"

"Not simply members of the Council. Us. The Family Burn." He shrugged in the darkness. "We haven't much to lose, have we?"

"A cheery way of putting it. And then?" I prompted.

He didn't move. Didn't look up, didn't drop his hand from the bed. But he seemed to deflate. Become insubstantial.

"I don't remember. There was a man, among the delegation. He reminded me of your brother." And there was that edge of hysteria. "I meant to speak to him, but I lost him in the alleyways of DelHaran. You've been there?"

"No, father. But that's where Noah died."

"Noah died," he answered, his voice faltering. "Yes. Yes, he did. I couldn't keep up with him."

There was a lot of stock in the 'going mad' school of thought, as far as I was concerned. I got as close to him as I dared and balled my hands into fists, just in case. I had struck my father before, of course, but usually we were both drunk for it.

Cue Billy running in with a torch. An actual torch, guttering and drooling pitch on the stone floor. It was like some penny-pulp scene, the villagers bursting in on the monster's den with their pitchforks and period-appropriate lighting devices.

Alexander looked like he always looked. Put out by my presence, other things on his mind. Formerly regal. What I thought were robes turned out to be a bathrobe, pulled tight around his belly. He had lost some weight and gained some wrinkles, but there was nothing in his bearing that hinted at madness. He looked down at my fists, half-raised into a fighting stance, and chuckled.

"You were going to punch me, Jacob? And you wonder why I wrote you out of the will. Honestly." He turned from me to Billy. "Get us something to eat, will you? A light lunch, perhaps."

"It's well past supper, sir."

"Well, then consult your books of etiquette and see if there's some way you can possibly bring me a sandwich and a warm beer and pretend that it's supper without all of us getting arrested by whatever powers enforce these social niceties, okay?" He turned away and strolled among his collection of furniture. "Because I could murder a sandwich, right now."

Billy looked from Alexander to me, even to Wilson. I shrugged and nodded. He set the torch in a stand that was apparently there for just that purpose, and then went back downstairs. I turned my attention back to father.