City of Masks (35 page)

That at least had not been necessary, to Garet’s profound relief. The feast, however, was still in good riot, the musicians making a joyous noise at one end of the Hall and a troupe of theatre actors doing comic pieces at the other. Dasanat was sitting atop the Lord’s dais looking patiently bored.

She stared at Garet for a moment, placed him, and then came down to deliver a gracious greeting, considering.

“You’re here,” she said and waved at the laden tables. “Eat something.”

“Thank you, no,” Garet said. “I must talk with both of you. Is there somewhere more private and less noisy? It is of some importance!” He had to shout the last as everyone in the great hall, Andarack included, sang the last chorus of “My Winter Love.”

Dasanat grabbed her new husband by an arm and took Garet to a hallway behind the dais. It led to a small sitting room. Dasanat closed the door, and the noise dropped to a tolerable level.

“What?” Andarack said, somewhat surprised to find himself away from the feast. “Oh, Garet, of course. Did the King want something? It’s a shame he couldn’t attend. Affairs of the city and all that, I’m sure.”

“Yes, he does want something, I’m afraid. But first, I want to congratulate you both on your wedding. I didn’t know the date had been changed, though I’m afraid the events of the day would still have kept me from attending.”

“Well, at least you could come to the feast,” Andarack said. “What is this about?”

Garet accepted a glass of wine Andarack fetched from a sideboard. “I don’t know if you have heard much of what went on today, but we raided the Trader Chirat’s warehouse in the Twelfth Ward. We found the Masks, well, the people who wore them, but not the silkstone masks. Those we arrested are in the Palace cellars now, but Gost and Sharock have sealed the gates of both Wards against the King.”

Dasanat looked at him, but her thoughts were elsewhere. Andarack put down his own glass and gave his head a shake.

“Now I wish I had drunk less! What of Lord Kirel?” he asked.

Garet shrugged. “It is not known if he is still the Lord or if Gost has taken over. It doesn’t really matter. The King needs a way to speak directly to the people of those Wards. We need to scatter a written message from the King into every corner of Wards Twelve and Thirteen. Can you think of a way to do this?”

Dasanat’s attention snapped back to the conversation.

“Kites, but we could not depend on the wind. Hmmm. Sotor was working with heated air. It can make a paper ball rise in a tube, but the wind is still a problem, and the fire, of course, if the flame must go with it.”

“Of course,” Andarack said, rubbing vigorously at his temples, “we could use arrows.”

“Too limited in their present form. It’s a problem of scale, you see,” Dasanat replied, looking at Garet.

“I don’t, actually,” Garet said, but the two ignored him.

“We could build a giant mechanical archer!” Andarack shouted, grinning at the idea forming in his head.

Dasanat took the wine glass from his hand and looked at him. His grin faded.

“You’re right. Too impractical,” he said, “but a giant bow might work.”

She nodded.

“Slow loading though,” Andarack said. He took Dasanat’s hands in his own.

“Not if you design a loading rack and an automatic release mechanism,” she replied, and leaned her head against his chest.

“I believe I have a drawing somewhere of an automatic wagon-loader for logs. It could serve as a start, but the crank . . . spark powered?” he asked, and embraced her.

“Perhaps,” she said, and kissed him.

After a long pause, Andarack freed his head to turn and look for Garet. The young man was waiting at the window, trying to hold his attention on a quarter moon floating in a scud of cloud.

“Sorry, Garet,” he said, and laughed. Dasanat kept her head on his chest, eyes closed.

“Not at all,” Garet said, in a strained voice. “It is your wedding night. However, the King needs this device in the morning. Can it be done?”

“Of course,” Andarack said. “Do you mind much, Dasanat?”

Her eyes opened, and she stood away from him. “We will need several Mechanicals from the feast, and cold water to sober them up. I’ll arrange that now,” she said and left the room.

“I’m really very sorry, Andarack,” Garet said. “If there is anything I can do to make it up to you?”

Andarack smiled at him, a hint of mischief in his eyes. “I have a severe punishment in mind, young man. It shall be your job to go out into that crowd and tell everyone who is not a mechanical, which means every Lord, Lady, and drunken lout, that they have to stop drinking and go home.”

By the time Garet had pushed out the last reveler and closed the doors, he wished he were back at the Hall dealing with demons. At least they never threw up on you.

THE KING HAD
been up late, so the siege of the two rebellious Wards had to wait until he had eaten his breakfast and read the reports of the night.

“Poor Andarack and his bride!” Trax exclaimed. “Pass the butter please.”

Garet pushed the plate across the table and concentrated on the eggs in front of him. He was rested, since he had gone back to bed after getting up very early and being told that the King was still asleep and likely to remain that way for a while.

When Trax did call for him, Garet was told to sit and eat again, a much better meal than the porridge he had at the Stewards School. Despite his guest’s impatience, the King seemed content to scan the papers laid out on a silver tray and crack his hard-boiled egg with a silver spoon.

“Do relax, Garet. Andarack will probably need this extra time to perfect his ingenuity. He promised to send word when it was ready, and I’ve heard nothing yet. Besides, we want the people of those Wards up and about to receive my letter. You’ve read it now? What do you think?”

Garet folded the page he had received from the steward in charge of the copyists. Twenty men and women had been working all night, writing the letter over and over again. “It should work, Your Majesty,” he began.

“Call me Trax when we’re alone, Garet,” the King said around a mouthful of egg.

A hovering steward took Trax’s plate away and replaced it with a bowl of berries and cream. Garet waved the woman away when she tried to fuss with his own plate.

“Trax then, I think it will work. It tells them what Gost and Chirat are up to and offers mercy, negotiations, even amnesty for the guards. There’s one thing I don’t understand. Why not offer forgiveness for the Lords as well?”

Trax shook his head. “No, not for them. Gost at least must be removed from power, or his plots will resume right away! I might be more lenient with Lord Sharock and her scheming son.”

The King took an enthusiastic mouthful of berries and licked the cream off his spoon.

“Do you know why Gost did this?” Garet asked.

“Oh well, as you must have heard by now, for it’s supposed to be a great secret, the city must soon expand. It’s either that or stop having babies! I prefer a second ring of Walls around Shirath, but the idea of a new city, built to the northeast, is a favourite of some Lords. A few of those worthies think it should be their city, and that they will warm a new throne with their noble bottoms. Gost is only the worst of that lot.”

Garet put down his fork and wiped his lips with a silk napkin done over in flowers and birds. “Will there be a new city, Trax, or just a bigger one?”

A steward crept into the breakfast room and whispered in Trax’s ear.

“That is still in Heaven’s hands,” the King said, and put down his own cutlery. “But if we survive the day, one of those things must happen.”

He stood up, and Garet quickly joined him.

“Come along, King’s agent. We can’t dawdle while the citizens await our heroic deeds, can we?”

Garet raised his eyes to a ceiling of painted swans. “No, Your Majesty, we certainly cannot dawdle!”

BIXA WAS WAITING
for them in the Banehall Plaza, her troops arrayed as they were on the map: lines of pikes and bows facing both Wards and less ferociously armed guards holding back the crowds.

Trax dismounted and gave his reins to a waiting groom. “Well, Captain, is there any sign of Andarack? He said he was on his way before I left the Palace.”

Bixa pointed beyond the King to the west. A large, flat cart came rumbling around the corner of the Banehall, pulled by eight horses and bearing a burden that, at this distance, defied description.

“I think that is the sign,” the Captain said.

The cart’s load soon resolved itself into a large bow, much taller than a person and set crosswise on a beam that was thick with ropes and gears. Fixed above it was a tall rack bearing spear-like arrows.

Trax smiled and went up to the tired-looking couple.

“Well, what have we here, the first child of your blessed union?” he asked, and took Andarack’s hand before bestowing a kiss on the cheek of a rather confused Dasanat.

“What have you named him?” the King asked.

“Bow,” Dasanat answered. She rubbed at eyes that had not been closed all night.

Andarack smothered a great yawn and signaled the mechanicals to shuffle forward and get the copied letters from the equally tired stewards holding them.

“I thought arrows wouldn’t work,” Garet said. He stepped up to examine the machine.

The arrows were blunt, twice as long as any normal shaft, and there were scores of them. It seemed many mechanicals had gone sleepless to ready this device. Yawning, grey-clad workers were tying the letters, several at once, to each long missile and placing them in the rack above the bow. Dasanat oiled a crank that pulled back the bowstring. From what Garet could see, the crank handle also turned a large, lopsided cylinder that would drop the arrows down into a slot on the beam, one at a time.

Garet shook his head in wonder. Andarack’s other creations—the spark containers, the silkstone armor, and the freight-lifter at the Falls of the Ar—were all impressive, but this was closer to the ex-Bane’s heart. Such a weapon, with steel points instead of letters, was something he’d like to see used against a Basher, or maybe tested against that monstrous Tunneler with its stubborn skin.

When the machine was loaded, Andarack borrowed some guards to turn the crank while he aimed the bow to fire above the Inner Wall.

“We’d hoped to use spark power to wind it,” he told the King, “but we had little time to ready the device.”

Trax nodded in royal forgiveness and gave the signal to proceed. The guards cranked away. At first, nothing happened, then the machine creaked as the bow string pulled back, clanked as a lettered arrow dropped into the groove, and twanged as the missile was sent arching on its way. The process repeated itself again and again as long as the guards laboured at the wheel and new arrows were loaded into the rack.

After each shot, Dasanat turned a wheel between the beam and the wagon. By this, the front end was made to go up and down by degrees. Garet saw that she could send the missiles nearer or farther by such adjustments. Her husband crouched behind the sweating guards, turning a handle that moved the back of the beam left or right on a small wheel set crosswise and resting on the wagon bed. This sent the missiles to one side or the other.

They shouted back and forth to each other, coordinating each shot so they could cover more of the Ward. The guards cranked in shifts while the mechanicals loaded more arrows, and the machine kept up its amazing rate of fire.

The Twelfth was soon done, and the machine was pulled over near the Thirteenth to begin again.

“There, on the wall above the Gates,” Bixa said, and they all looked up to see Gost glaring down at them, surrounded by his Ward Guards.

“Try not to hit him, Andarack,” the King said. “I’d rather get him alive, but if you could come close . . .”

Gost, however, did not stay to make himself a target. He disappeared from the wall, and soon the other guards followed.

“Now,” said the King, and the machine started playing its discordant music once again.

A PAVILION WAS
set up for the King and his party between the rear of the Banehall and the disobedient Wards. Trax ordered food and drink for the watching guards and made arrangements with Bixa for them to be relieved in sections to rest. The sun was bright and high, and it looked to be a long wait.

By mid-afternoon, the crowds saw the siege as an inconvenience rather than a spectacle and began to disperse. It was nearing dinner when a party came from the Banehall. The Hallmaster led them, his face a wonderfully purpled mass of swelling and scrapes.

Trax rose to greet him. “Why Hallmaster, I heard of your deeds from Captain Bixa, but I had no idea you were so badly used by that fiend Maroster! Please take this stool and tell me that you feel better than you look,” Trax said as the injured man came under the canvas.

After sitting down with a barely concealed groan, Branet answered, “I wish I could tell you that, Your Majesty, but it would be a lie. However, I didn’t come here for sympathy. Is it true that Gost and Sharock have closed their gates to you?”