Authors: Tim Akers
He was sitting at a desk. There were other bits of furniture around; a bed, a long table that was cluttered with plates and books and more than a few bottles from the bar downstairs. They were arranged haphazardly around the room. It looked as though he had simply dragged them as far as he could and then given up. I went to stand behind him.
"You're in my light," he said. I moved to the side to see what he was reading. A journal, quite old. There were drawings of wildlife and plants, alongside graphs of measurements. Typical scientist's stuff.
"What's that?" I asked.
"Something I've been reading. A journal of an unnamed scientist, from early in Veridon's history. I think he might have been part of the group that eventually became the Artificers Guild." He absentmindedly flipped the page and looked up at me. "Why are you here, Jacob?"
"I could ask you the same thing," I said, not yet willing to get to the heart of it. "Last I checked, there were perfectly good bedrooms downstairs."
He snorted and turned back to the journal. "Too close to the streets, to the carriages. To the Deep Furnace. I had to get away from the voice."
"You said two voices, before."
"Yes. They've told you I'm mad, of course."
"They?"
He twisted in his seat to look up at me. "The Council. Angela. Whoever it is she's trying to replace me with, or maybe the industrial families, trying to get our seat revoked."
I thought of the argument between Veronica and the Lady Tomb. It seemed father was aware enough to know forces were moving against him in the Council.
"You're living in a dark room, alone, and telling everyone that you're hearing a voice from out of the cogwork. What do you think they told me?"
He chuckled again.
"So they sent you to check in on me? Get me declared insane, is it?" He stood up from the desk and went to the table. He put it between us, put his hands on the surface. "Would that be revenge enough for you, Jacob?"
"I've given up on revenge, Alexander. There's nothing I could do that would make us even."
"Noble of you to feel that way. Very egocentric." He grimaced. "Maybe there's hope for you yet."
"No one sent me, dad. There was some bad trouble on the docks today, and I got caught up in it. Seems like the Council knows more about it than they're letting on. I thought I'd see what you knew. See if you could help me."
"Was it another one of those attacks?" he asked.
I told him about the ship, and Crane. I left out some stuff, because it was a complicated enough tale, and I wasn't yet sure he was in his full mind. I didn't mention Angela, or Veronica, or the iron girl.
"And the mask," Wilson said. I was just about to get to it, hadn't decided if I was going to include it or not. Wilson sensed it and made the decision for me. "We found a mask in Crane's place."
That caught his attention. He held out his hand, and with some small hesitation, Wilson gave it over. Alexander sat on the bed, holding the mask in both hands and staring at the words. Finally, he reached into his costumey robes and produced another mask. It was a cheap imitation of the mask we had found, made of hammered tin and child's paint.
"I've been having dreams," he whispered. "I've been seeing things in my dreams. It won't let me sleep."
"What is it?" I asked after a while.
"The Rite of Purge," he answered, his voice far away. "Something we haven't had in Veridon for quite a while. Hopefully never again."
"Oh," Wilson said. "Ah. Maybe that explains your vision, Jacob."
"Vision?" Alexander asked. "You've been having visions, and you accuse me of madness for hearing voices. Typical."
"It was the words there that triggered it." I tried to explain what I had seen. Alexander nodded the whole way through. "So what is this Rite of Purge about?"
"Used to be there was only one punishment that the Council could bring against its members. Now we have fines and restrictions and tax brackets," he said, waving his hand. "Now it's nice and complicated. But back at the Founding, the Councilors were above all reproach. We could do no wrong. If someone
did
do something wrong, it was so wrong that there could only be one punishment."
"Death?"
"Erasure." He looked up at me with those old eyes, stared hard at me. "Absolute removal from the city. From the history of the city. A complete purge of the family from the story of Veridon."
"How often has this happened?" Wilson asked.
"How would we know? Even the decision was removed from the books. Only the people who were there would know, and it was in their interest to forget. Hasn't happened in my lifetime. I suspect not in several generations. And this," he said, lifting the mask. "This is the symbol of office. Worn by the man charged with removal. It's a butcher's mask."
"Do you think Crane fancies himself an instrument of the Council?" Wilson asked. "Sent to purge one of the families?"
"Who's to say he isn't? Whole point of the mask is to invest the Council's power in one man." Alexander tossed the mask onto his bed and rested his head in his hands. "That mask is a mandate. Crane had this. Who knows what resources he has at his disposal?"
"He had it, but he left it behind," Wilson said. "So was it given to him, or did he take it from someone?"
"I'm getting tired of this," Alexander said. He was leaning against the table with his full weight, arms spread wide, head drooping to his chest. "I'm getting tired of these games."
"Kinda late for that," I said.
"Kind of. Yes." He placed the mask gingerly on the table, straightened the edge of it so it lined up with the table. "There are things I should have left for you, son. Other than obligations."
"And mind-numbing debt," I laughed. "Good news on the debt part. Since I've been written out of the will, that won't be my problem either."
Alexander lifted a square of paper from the table and tapped it against the mask. When he raised his head, I thought for one startling second that he was crying. He slid the paper toward me, then sat at the table and crossed his arms.
When it became clear that I wasn't going to move, Wilson went and got the paper. He laughed as he read it, then held it up for me to read.
I got the words "Right of Name," "Councilor-in-Standing" and "Son, Jacob Burn" through my head before I turned and walked out of the room, leaving the letter behind. Wilson followed, laughing all the way, with a touch of hysteria.
J
UST A REMINDER
. My father, Alexander Burn, betrayed me. He sold a part of me to the Church of the Algorithm, buried one of their secrets in my flesh and then cast me out of the house when I didn't show the proper gratitude. When his little compromise got some of my friends killed, I acted against his will. Directly against his will. This is what got me shot by Angela, got Emily killed, got me a bad name in the city of Veridon. Everything that man has done has in some way acted against me. And this was his last shot. He took everything from me, spent it all, and now he was giving me the bill.
"We should get a drink," Wilson yelled from behind me as I pushed through the busy streets of DowningTown. "Celebrate. You've been reinstated!"
I gave him a nasty look over my shoulder. He was all smiles and teeth.
"You know damn well that it's too late for that," I yelled back. The crowds were loud tonight. Rumors of the attacks at the dock this morning were driving a certain madness through the air. "The Burn family name died a long time ago. That skeleton has just been rattling along."
"So it's up to you to bury it. Shouldn't be that hard."
I grimaced and kept trudging through the crowd. Lots of pushing, lots of noise. The Down wasn't usually this busy, even on festival nights. People were seriously spooked, if they were treating this like some kind of holiday from sanity. But who was I to talk? One thing Wilson had right. Way things were going, we should seriously get a drink.
We chose a place I used to frequent in my days as a serious criminal. I didn't think they'd recognize me. Hoped not, at least. Some people I pissed off back then, they might pay folks to let them know I was around. Come by and have a swing at my head. Or maybe that's just what I needed. A good fight to clear the head. Wilson seemed like he could do with the same. Seemed edgy, and there was nothing quite as intimidating as an edgy bug. All those teeth, that smiling, nervous energy. The knives bulging under his vest. We made a good pair.
I got our drinks and found a table in the corner. Wilson sat across from me. Still grinning.
"Cut it out," I said.
"What?"
"That smile. You're happy about this." I drank and wiped my face with the back of my hand. "You like to see me suffer."
"Not exactly. I like to see you when you get like this, though."
"Like what?" I asked.
He spread his hands around the room. People were giving us our space, for all that the rest of the tavern was knees to nuts.
"Dangerous," he said. "People can smell it. You're a man who isn't thinking straight."
"I'm thinking just fine."
"We had questions for your father. Lots of questions, really. Best thing we could do is go back to that morbid house, climb up to that room and sit in the dark with your father. Asking questions."
"Maybe," I conceded.
"But we're not going to do that, are we?"
I was quiet. His smile widened. My beer was empty, but another appeared without having to ask. The barmaid wouldn't meet my eyes. Hurried away. She could smell it on me.
"No," I said. "We're not."
"We left the mask behind. You think we might want that later on?" Wilson sipped his beer and rubbernecked around the room like a tourist. "I think we'll need it. But no matter."
Again, I didn't answer. I wasn't going back to that house. Not now, not ever. I had been under the gloom of the Burn name for years now. Some folks blamed me for the noble family's fall from grace, some folks blamed my father, or the industrialists who were squeezing the Founding Families out of the Council. Out of power. Last thing I wanted was the responsibility of righting that ship. Or worse, standing at the helm when she finally slipped under the water. Thinking that reminded me of the morning's fight on the river, and the crawling dead. I shivered. It also made me realize I'd been up for a lot of hours in a row, here, and a lot had happened in a day. Suddenly, fatigue plucked at my bones. I settled into my chair and stared at my beer. I was feeling unapologetically bad for myself.
"Why did he do that?" I asked no one in particular. "Why'd he reinstate me? What happened to letting the name disappear before he'd hand it over to the likes of me?"
"You may not have noticed this, but your father is in a peculiar state of mind." Wilson folded his hands around his mug. "I don't really understand what he meant by hearing voices. I think we can trace that pretty directly to our boy Crane, don't you?"
"I thought of that. Wasn't sure how to put it to him, though."
"I'm not sure you should have." Wilson sipped his beer, as though it was hot, and licked his lips. "We're in an unusual position, Jacob. I think we have more information than most of the people involved in this."
I blinked at him across the table. Fatigue was really pulling me down.
"Sure doesn't feel that way," I said. "Feels like we don't know the first damn thing."
He laughed, but kept the mirth from his eyes. There was something uncomfortable in the way he was sitting, like he was trying to balance on a very tiny chair.
"We know Crane is working with Tomb. We know that he is somehow connected with a Rite of Purge, and that a lot of the abilities he's demonstrated align with your father's sudden case of madness." He drank, then slid his mug slowly around the table, making patterns in the condensation. "And Crane took the time to hire you for a job that was probably going to get you killed."
"I don't like where you're going with this," I muttered.
"I'm not going anywhere with it. I'm just laying out some facts."
"You're implying that a Rite of Purge has been written out with the Burn name on it."
"I'm not sure that I am," he said. "Although that is a possibility. From what your father described, though, it doesn't sound like the kind of thing the Council would enact. Unless your family has done something heinous that we're just not aware of."
I leaned back in my chair and rubbed my face. "You never know. Dad likes his secret plans."
"Let's discount that for a moment. This Rite of Purge thing seems pretty extreme, even for Angela Tomb. I don't think she'd take the time to bring it in front of the full Council. If she was serious about snuffing out the Burn name, I mean... there are really only two of you left. Your mother's not going to contest the Right, your siblings are dead or married. Honestly, you didn't really count toward the total until your father reinstated you."
"Maybe that's why he did it," I said. "He's worried Angela is trying to get him out of the way, so he brought me back into the family. Putting the crosshairs on my head would force my involvement. Force them to act against me, and me to react against them. That'd be typical of him."