The Broken Bell (45 page)

“There’s no need to terrify them so soon, is there, dear?”

“Ha. Shows what you know about soldiers. They’re already plotting ways to get Mary baking them pies.”

“Hush.” She kissed me.

She was dressed again in her black pants and black canvas shirt. The dagger was back in her boot. I felt another hidden away at the small of her back when I put my arms around her, and my heart ached.

This is what you’ve done to her, said a mean small voice. She can’t even go outdoors without arming herself.

“I wore knives well before I met you, Mr. Markhat,” she whispered in my ear.

“Did you now?”

“I did. What’s next?”

She didn’t see. I almost didn’t. A man was walking slowly down the sidewalk, across the street. There was nothing remarkable about him, or the way he walked. He was just a man, perhaps a bit weary, holding his hat against a wind that still smelled of smoke.

But as he moved beneath a street lamp, he pulled back his hat and looked across the street.

It was Mills. His eyes were sunken and circled by mottled black rings. His skin was slack, going blue. The scarf wrapped around his ruined neck was stained an ugly brown in the front.

He nodded, lowered his hat, continued on.

“Dear, what is it?”

“Nothing. I remembered something. You stay here. I won’t be long.”

“Damn it. Damn it all, anyway.” She let go of me and hurried to the back. A cheery little bell tinkled as she closed the door.

I cussed a bit myself. Then I went out the door, gave the soldiers a glare, and hurried off after the dead man.

Mills set a good pace for a corpse. He went two blocks north and turned into an alley. I’d been keeping half a block behind, on the assumption the Corpsemaster wanted some privacy for our talk. I figured the alley was it.

In the alley, though, a plain Army tallboy waited. Its driver was either living or so freshly dead he still felt the need to sneeze. I nodded at him and clambered inside, and once I was seated he snapped his reins and off we went.

Mills sat across from me. There was no smell. No buzzing of flies. Nothing but a slouched figure in a bloody scarf.

“Captain.”

The voice wasn’t even that of Mills. It was the Corpsemaster’s own voice, or at least the voice she’d led me to believe was hers.

With her breed, one can never be too sure.

“Corpsemaster.” I didn’t salute. “Any news from upriver?”

“You refer to the
Regency
and her attempt to blow the bluffs.”

“I do.”

There was a small stirring of Mills’s dead limbs. “An ingenious stratagem. I had no idea Avalante had continued their research, after the War. I commend you, Captain. Your efforts were daring and bold.”

“But were they effective?”

Silence.

“That, Captain, I simply do not know.”

“With respect, Corpsemaster, might I inquire as to what you do know?”

She chuckled. “Very little, I’m afraid. A powerful charm has been laid on the land itself, north of Rannit. I suspect it required the full efforts of all three of our sorcerers, working in close concert. That is in itself troubling. Nearly as troubling as the extent to which it has rendered me blind and deaf.”

“That’s why the long-talker isn’t working anymore.”

“Yes. Also disabled are the other more conventional lines of arcane communication used by the House. Oh yes. I know of those. Long ago, Captain, I laid certain charms of my own, up and down the Brown. All those that lie north of here have fallen silent.”

“We’re blind, then.”

Mills nodded.

“I have reason to believe, though, that the invaders are also reduced to what they can see with their unaided eyes,” she said. “This can work to our advantage. An unexpected boon, granted by the Angel of Chance herself, perhaps.”

“I don’t follow.”

“They perhaps do not see the
Regency
. Perhaps not be aware of her approach, or her mission. Indeed, her crew may have already laid the charges and blown the Bluffs. If the crew of the
Regency
made the attempt after the invaders loosed the concealment spell, the enemy may have well masked the very agents of their undoing. Poetic, is it not?”

“Is that what happened?”

“I have no way of knowing. I merely offer it as a possibility. It is also possible the
Regency
was discovered and sunk before she laid a single charge. I simply do not know.”

I nodded. We rolled on ahead, heading east, and not in any hurry.

“The reason for your visit?”

“If I should fall, finder, all those who serve me will fall as well. The few remaining sorcerers in Rannit may continue the defense of the city, or they may flee, or they may join the invaders. In any instance, there will be chaos. You will find no place of safety here, in the aftermath. Neither you, or those you love.”

“Is this one of those morale-building pep talks I remember? Because, with respect, if it is, it needs work.”

“Take those you care about. Go to my house. Find the lowest chambers. There is a door lined with silver at the end of a hall lined with lead. Open that door with this.”

A key appeared in my hand. She didn’t hand it to me. It was just there, cold to the touch.

“Why, Corpsemaster?”

She caused Mills to shrug.

“Because it amuses me. Because I would not leave this world knowing I was a villain to all. Because it is Tuesday and the whim stuck me—what does it matter?”

“Thank you.”

“I hear you’re getting married.”

That threw me. I gobbled air for a moment.

She laughed. “You did get the lady a proper ring, didn’t you? Not some dime-store trinket?”

“It’s not a real wedding. We’re at war, or about to be.”

“So?” Mills turned his head. “You can spend your life waiting for the right moment, Captain. You can spend a thousand lifetimes. A hundred thousand. Take it from me. I can make that statement, and mean it quite literally. Driver. Stop. The Captain will be leaving now.”

The tallboy rolled to the curb.

Mills hid his face with his hat.

“I would shake your hand, Captain, but I fear that would be less than pleasant for either of us. You have the key. Use it if all is lost.”

“We’re a long way from that, sir.”

“Optimism does not suit you, Captain. Fare thee well.”

“And you, sir.”

Mills turned away. I leaped to the pavement. The door slammed shut and the tallboy charged away.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Darla didn’t ask who I’d rushed out to meet.

She knew, though. She knew damned well.

We didn’t speak of it. Not speaking of it robbed us both of any words at all. Mary filled the silence with trivia about hair and make-up, and Darla did her best to make as if I hadn’t just rushed out to take a ride with a dead man.

We stayed there, at the shop, for most of the night. There wasn’t a damned thing else I could do. Mary and Martha sorted shelves and hung gowns and sparred over the displays and the pricing.

Darla pulled up a chair next to mine and we held hands and watched night swallow up the city.

The Corpsemaster’s key was tucked away safe in a pocket. It was just a big old-fashioned iron skeleton key, worn from age and handling.

And it led to a silver door at the end of a lead-lined hallway.

I wondered what lay behind the silver door. I thought of the Battery, and that strange grassland, and the foreign skies over both.

I decided I didn’t want to find out where that door led, because once it closed behind us, I knew it would never ever open again.

Darla squeezed my hand.

“So, you’re ready for tomorrow?”

“I’m ready.” A long column of bowmen ran past. “If anyone hostile shows up, I figure they’ll go after Carris. But stick close to Tamar all the same.”

“I will.”

And that was all we said.

I hear that a comet appeared in the north that night, hanging over the Brown like a flag, or a shroud. The canyons of downtown don’t leave much of the sky visible, these days. We never saw the thing.

But they saw the comet from the walls. Oh yes, they did.

Hundreds fled at the sight of it, on foot, taking to the woods and risking the bogs and the snakes and the haints, as Mama Hog called them.

But only hundreds. If the comet was a trick of the sorcerers from Prince, it was largely a wasted effort.

Not so much because so few fled, but because so few remained at all.

We left the store well after Curfew. I helped shutter the windows and bar the doors. The ladies looked back at the little place as we left, and only Martha took the trouble to hide her tears.

We all knew. We all felt it.

Whatever the dawn brought, Rannit would never be the same.

“What?”

“I tell ye plain. Ye are not seein’ Miss Tomas this morn’, and no amount o’ bluster is going to change that.”

Mary’s eyes blazed. Her hands were on her hips. The ladle she gripped in her right hand was heavy enough to swing, and I didn’t think her choice of it was entirely an accident.

I considered and rejected just picking her diminutive body up and moving her to the side.

“This is not a real wedding, dammit.”

“It’ll be real bad luck to them what is havin’ a real wedding,” said Mary. “And don’t you be dismissing my beliefs.”

I forced a deep breath. “Fine. Wonderful. Look. What if I wear a blindfold? What if I just speak to her through the damned door? Will your beliefs allow me that much?”

“They would,” said Martha Hoobin, who emerged from the rear of the house with a rare smug grin. “But you’re a mite late, Mister Markhat. Miss Tomas left for the Church half an hour ago. I suspect she is there now. See if you can sweet-talk your way past them Church soldiers, will ye?”

I was dressed, which was fortunate, because rather than speak words I would sooner or later regret I just jammed my ridiculous groom’s top hat tight on my fresh-shaven head and stomped out the door.

I did let it slam behind me.

The soldiers leaped to attention.

“Stay here, lads. If trouble starts, hide behind that pair of banshees.”

A pair of “Aye, Captains” were spoken at my back.

I found my borrowed carriage waiting at the curb. My driver leaped down and made a big show of opening the door for me.

I managed a gruff thanks and settled in for the ride.

The hand cannon rode heavy at my waist. The barrel of the thing poked out from beneath my fancy jacket and I knew Darla would have a fit at the way it ruined the lines of the suit, but that would serve as her penance for sneaking out just to assuage some backwoods wedding superstition.

The day was turning out clear and brisk. The sky was a cheery blue we hadn’t seen in weeks. The few trails of smoke that remained were rising straight up before thinning out to nothing against the rising sun.

The Army was up and moving. Wagonloads of cannon shot rattled past, their contents no longer hidden by tarps or canvases.

Neither side had time for any last-minute surprises.

Wherthmore’s sooty domes rose up shortly, not quite glinting in the sun. I saw a carriage ahead of us stop and disgorge the female half of a wedding party, which scampered away up the steps. Another carriage did the same.

Then my turn arrived. A kid in bright red Church clothes opened my door and gestured for me to step out.

“Be welcome on this most blessed of days,” he began in a breathless monotone. “May the Angel Galaheil herself shade you with her mighty wings of eternal blessing—”

“Sure, kid, sure, Angels and blessings all around.” I flipped a coin into his palm, and he made it vanish with a grin. “Seen a groom show up looking sick, with a bandage on his head?”

“Maybe I did, Mister.”

I climbed out of the carriage and sent it rolling on its way.

Another coin did a magic trick by appearing in my hand and vanishing into his pocket.

“How long ago?”

“First light. Way too early. We let him in anyway. Afraid he might pass out on the steps waiting. He’s in with the other victims.”

“Victims. Ha ha. What a humorous lad you are.”

“You bring groomsmen, Mister?”

“They’ll be along any minute now. Why don’t you show me to this gathering place of grooms. Sounds like a place a man can get a drink.”

“Not today. Old Father Wickens is in charge today.” The kid looked around. “But if a man wants a drink anyway, a man could find a flask of good Aimish whiskey hid in the firewood later, if a man had another half a crown.”

“Half a crown my ass. Here’s a silver. I don’t find a flask in the firewood I tell Father Wickens one of his altar boys has taken a fancy to sin.”

The kid grinned. A silver was still too much but you never know when you might need a sharp pair of eyes later on.

“Silver it is.” We reached the door and a pair of red masks, and the kid snapped to attention.

“A groom seeks the blessing of the Holy Church,” he said to the masks.

“Be welcome in this Holy Place,” intoned one.

“May Angels damn you to an eternity in deepest Hell,” said the other. “Apostate devil.”

I winked. “Nice to see you too.”

I breezed past the masks, and followed the wide-eyed kid deep into the bowels of the Church.

As it turns out, the bowels of the Church are furnished pretty well.

Nothing like Avalante, of course. The halfdead either have an eye for decoration or are careful to employ those who do. Sure, dark is the active motif, but they don’t overdo it.

Wherthmore, on the other hand, had different ideas of what to hang on walls.

First, it had to contain an image of a saint. I don’t read Church, so I don’t know who was being depicted, but the halos made it easy for guess who was who. Angels wore wings and wielded mighty swords. Saints bore halos and appeared to be in the final stages of acute constipation.

Had the renderings not been worked in pure gold, I’d have found them comical in their lack of artistic execution.

Occupying space between the banners and the flags and the murals and the paintings were swords. Or daggers. Or lances, or standards, or maces, or any of the other usual items employed in the distribution of holy mayhem. Again, gold plates with the flowing script of the Church identified each artifact, but I rushed past one and all.