Missing Elements (The Lament Book 3) (6 page)

Like home.

Not that she'd ever truly had one
of those.

That would mean, in any story
that she'd ever learned, that the woman was going to turn out to not just to be
an enemy, but their secret leader. The mastermind behind the whole thing. It
was something to keep in mind, but for the moment her words held more
information than Pran would have expected on her first day.

"All of the High Councilors
are equal, of course. Except that some are given greater weight than others.
Shipping by air is decently important, hence the good space, down there. To get
an idea of how we poor and beleaguered Bards fare in this, you need only look
at how the others stuff us back here, on the roof."

Saran chuckled, but shook her
head.

"True enough. As a guide,
that can work for you Pran. If whoever you're looking for makes money in taxes,
or would really hurt the rest of us if they just walked away, then they're on
the first floor. If it's just about something gentle or fun, then the third is
for them. This is the happiest level, by far."

She nodded, and then tilted her
head, deciding to speak her mind. It was probably wrong anyway. But if the
files weren't stored in the lowest level, then what was? Something secret, she
bet. At least if it wasn't the overflow for the people no one thought mattered
too much.

Like her, it seemed.

"So, the lowest levels are
used to store secret tech? Download machines, and computers?"

Both women stared, and Saran was
suddenly on her feet, a kinetic pistol coming out from under her clothing. The
things weren't tiny, but it hadn't been visible before. Looking down the
barrel, her life not even bothering to flash in front of her, she grinned.

"Calm down, please. It just
makes sense. I,
personally
, captured some technology not a month ago. It
has to go somewhere. There's one of those download things in the basement of my
house, in Pumpkin Hollow. It was the one that I got from Will Butcher, acting
as his agent, and collecting goods for his escape? So unless that was cleaned
out, it's still there." Her guess was that someone had been in there
within days, to secure the place. She would have done it, if she'd had half a
chance.

Clarice snorted, and then sighed.

"Yes, we
do
keep the
secrets down there. Not just technology either. It's where our watchers operate
from. You should go there and play for some of them soon. See if they'll open
up to you. They never have for me, but if you do it openly, and take treats, it
might wear them into a pliable state."

She kept moving toward the door
then, ignoring the fact that there was a deadly weapon pointed at her at the
moment.

"Sounds fun. Futile too. I
mean,
I
wouldn't tell me anything like that. Would you? If you tell
people your secrets, then
everyone
will know them." There was
dramatic eye rolling, but no lowering of the pistol yet. She paused at the door
anyway, deciding that being shot with it from there would kill her even if the
wood was between them. Closing it quickly wouldn't help her much. "High
Councilor Saran, if you do find that you have anything that might be in that
area, please let me know? That will probably help with the rest of it. Thank
you!" Then she walked away, plate still in hand. She certainly wasn't
going back in...

Except that she
had
to.

There were other plates. Worse,
her Master was still eating.

"Oopse! Let's stack the
plates in the other room. I'll see about passing them off to Walden again.
Here..." She held out her hand to Saran, who got her own dish, and let her
go to the other room alone, then she left, acting as if it hadn't been a giant
oversight. Trying to walk out with a dish like that. She didn't even know where
to take them. She might well have ended up traipsing over half the ship looking
for the galley.

That thought got her to shake her
own head more than a bit. The
building
she was in wasn't going to float
away, after all. She, personally, blamed the weapons toting insane person in
the other room. It was discombobulating, having that happen twice in one day.
Why, in her life she'd managed to go whole weeks without having anything more
dangerous than a lute pulled on her... That idea did get her to scurry a
little, since the whole thing was less than perfect, to her way of
understanding things.

Yes, she needed to act a little
suspicious to follow Guardian Clark's plan, of course.
Dying
wouldn't
help her career however. Not even being killed a little bit. Unless she
faked
it. Then it might be all right, as long as she got to take a bow while everyone
still had her untimely death fresh in mind. Otherwise it would kill any
momentum she had going with the public.

She didn't jog down the stairs,
merely walking quickly, with her head held high, and back straight. Confident
seeming, even if she did almost just die. That meant she didn't run into the
boy that was scampering up them at nearly a full run, his hands full of
binders. It wasn't Walden, but from the outfit he wore, it was kind of obvious
that he held at least a similar position. Again, he was about her own age, or a
little younger, and nearly dropped his load of goods as he passed by. Colliding
with her, as if he just didn't really see her there to begin with. Pran managed
to step aside, not really thinking about it since it didn't hurt, until he
spoke, his words rushed.

"Sorry there, sir!"
Then, stopping dead, he spun in place, and took a good look at her. "I
mean... Sorry,
ma'am
." There was no blushing that she could tell,
but he had nicely dark skin and that could hide things like that. "On a
rush. My mistake." Then, without waiting to see if
she
wanted to
add anything, he hurried on, going a bit slower, but only enough to keep a hold
on the slipping folios that he held.

Still, he'd gotten that she
wasn't a boy, even if she were in pants and had short hair. That was decently
special, wasn't it? The only other person that she'd met that hadn't been told
her gender first and had guessed, was Lyse. The slow, but oddly clever, daughter
of the man who ran Pumpkin Hollow.

Lines drew inside her head then,
between Lyse, who really
had
been clever enough, having her own side
business making and selling hard cider, and a man from The Lament. Dovish.

He'd seemed like a slow person,
too. His words slurred a bit, and he always had a charming grin on his face
that reminded her of one of her mates from school pretending to be a tiny dog.
It had been an act, and a really good one, fooling not just her, but everyone
else for a long time. He was a download though, a person from a different time.
After he'd been found out as being one and captured, the man had vanished.
Given what little she knew, her bet was that he was in the basement there. That,
or somewhere close by, since the Guardians had flat told her that he'd been
being tortured for information.

Also that he hadn't talked. None
of their enemies had. Except... Well, unless they were lying, several of them
had freely shared information with
her
, hadn't they? It was the only
thing that made her current half act of being one of them work at all. She
didn't think anyone was going to buy it, but a sudden thought made her feel a
lot better.

Saran would
know
what
Clark had planned. He was in charge of the investigation for the Guardians
after all, so his Master would know about it. His
boss
. She kept the
difference clear in her head. The man was the real thing, not just someone learning
what to do, as an Apprentice. Pran, on the other hand, hadn't even understood
that the High Councilor that had pulled a weapon on her, was simply trying to
help her sell the role.

Hopefully she hadn't ruined it,
but since no one would believe it if she
fought
her way out of the room,
it was probably good enough. It took a few minutes to both get to the ground
floor and then find a boy sitting back in a little alcove, behind the stairs.
He had a plate of food, and looked at her guiltily, as he stuffed something
into his mouth. A bit of cake, if she knew what the crumbs on the plate were.
That
might
be wrong, but she'd had that before. On The Lament. Not the
dark brown kind that this kid was brushing off onto the floor, but twice in her
life it had happened.

It had been good.

The boy in brown had a now
familiar golden sash on, and seemed a bit pudgy to tell the truth. Round of
cheek and with a tiny belly pushing against his shirt. It was nice to see
really, since it meant that somebody loved and cared for him. This wasn't a
person that had to fight for each bite of food he got and probably never had. A
real boy. Probably with a family somewhere that prospered enough for him to
grow like he had.

He stood suddenly, his breath a
bit gasping.

"I'm in for it now, ain't I?
Well, I can't lie, you saw me with it. It was left over, and the High Finance
was just gonna toss it. He didn't say I could have it, but he didn't exactly
say that I couldn't neither. Ma'am."

There was a sad look on his face,
meaning that this was probably a punishable offense. He could be locked in a
closet with rats, burned, or even beaten to death for it.

Not that it would be that harsh.
Even at the Art School, most punishments involved fixing what you'd done wrong
and trying to learn not to do it again. Sometimes people had to sit with a
teacher in a boring room and be lectured. She hadn't been punished much, over
the seven years she was there. After all,
she
knew how to hide the
things that she did wrong. Except the last one, which had gone much worse than
she'd expected. Even then the result hadn't involved heavy rods or the knot
whip. Just her being kicked out, to starve and die.

She grinned.

"Ah, now I
own
you!
Mwa-ha! Well, future servant of mine, what's your name?"

"Robest, ma'am. Robest
Tombs. What... What do I have to do? I mean, it was
only
a piece of
chocolate cake. Not like I kilt a man or nothing like that."

It was a point, but good
blackmail or extortion didn't hinge on the information you had being
good
.
No, it always came down to the person you were working being
afraid
it
was.

"If it's
only
that,
then just go and tell your keeper, and the High Councilor, all about it. I'm
sure it will go well enough for you. That, or you could buy some time by taking
me
to see the High Airship Councilor? I need to bend his ear and try to get
a dye shipment put through." She snapped her fingers and went wide eyed,
pretending she'd had an idea. "I know, you can help me with that. Give me
all the secrets about who needs things shipped or people moved right now.
Between Gladstone and O'Brien." Not that it would work, but it couldn't
hurt to ask, either. Or, in this case, point out that
she
, some girl he
didn't know and wouldn't have ever heard of before, was important enough to be
doing things like that. It sounded pretty good, didn't it? Setting up special
shipping like that was the kind of thing someone important would be doing.

The kid sighed.

"I don't know anything about
that. Unless... Well, if you run it past High Energy, I think her daughter is
down that way. In Luis? She said something the other day about wanting her to
come for the middle winter holidays. That's a month away, more or less, but she
might throw in with you, if you're looking for leverage?"

That... sounded like a good plan
to her. It also turned out that Luis was only about a hundred miles from the
much smaller town of O'Brien, which wasn't much more than a rich village,
mainly owned by the one family. The boy, Robest, even took her to Jacques, by
way of that lady's offices.

After walking in, Pran got what
Clarice had been going on about before she'd left. Not only was the place
much
bigger than the Bard's area, but it had dozens of people sitting at desks,
working away at things. No one said anything about her being there, but near
the back, at the largest and nicest desk, which was made of pure mahogany, sat
a grumpy looking old woman that seemed ready to chew them apart, when she
glanced up.

"You! Fat boy, what the hell
do you think you're doing? I didn't ring the bell for service, did I?"
Then without cracking a smile she waved them over. "Go. Say your piece and
get out of my hair." She batted at the gray curls, which were longish for
an older lady. Probably down her back, Pran bet.

It didn't make her look any
better, since her frown lines didn't seem to be going away. Bullies didn't
smile unless others were in pain. Which didn't matter to Pran right then at
all.

"I'm setting up a shipment
for High Councilor Times. It should take them near Luis. Do you want in on
that? We can get your daughter a bed, if she doesn't mind sharing with an
Apprentice or two. It should only be about two weeks travel time, as long as
nothing happens along the way. Emergencies-" The woman didn't let her go
on, just flicking her hand at Pran and making a sound with her tongue.
Raspberries, they called it.

"
Times
? That bitch
couldn't set a chair upright with both hands and three helpers. What's the buy
in for this, if I say yes?"

Pran didn't know what that meant,
personally. After a second she just shrugged.

"Well, it's a special trip,
and we need to fill the airship with goods on the return portion. Your daughter
can guard them, which will get her a berth, but the Captain will want the going
rate plus fifty-percent."

There was a wince, and a head
shake. They weren't sent away though, which was promising. After all, these two
kids might just have what the old lady wanted. That gave them... What had
Robest called it? Leverage?