CHAPTER 2 #3
The knight took the object and turned it over in his fingers. “What is this?”
“Part of a Clockwork Boy. It used to move, but we boiled it for a few hours and it finally stopped.”
“Are these made of bone?”
“We don’t know. The alchemists are still fighting over it. Half of them think it’s organic, and the other half think someone carved each little piece. They use a lot of words that I don’t think even they understand.”
“Hmm.” Caliban handed the piece back to the Captain, and wiped his hand on his pant leg.
“Anyway.” The Captain set it down on his desk. “They’ve got to be making them somewhere—or building them, or breeding them, or summoning them, or the Dreaming God knows what.”
Caliban might have said something, but the tattoo artist sank a needle into his bicep, and he winced.
“Anyway. Your—ah—group will be traveling to Anuket City to attempt to infiltrate and learn how this is happening. And if possible, to stop it.”
“Snrrrgghghk…” Slate pinched the bridge of her nose and tilted her head back miserably.
“You don’t have spies there already?” asked Caliban.
The Captain shook his head. “Not any more. All the ones we did have wound up going missing.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, which he dropped in Slate’s lap without comment.
“Our spies in Anuket had been largely diplomatic corps, frankly—they’re supposed to watch the politics, not break in and steal state secrets.
And now they’re presumed dead anyway. So we’re trying a more brute force solution. ”
The bald man’s fingers moved with surprising deftness over the pale skin of Caliban’s upper arm, leaving dark lines behind. Slate retired to a corner and blew her nose.
“And we’re the best you could come up with?” said Caliban.
“No,” said the Captain. “You’re not the Dowager’s first choice, or even the second, I’m afraid. But those people are also presumed dead now, so here we are.”
“And that’s all you know?”
“That’s all we know. A scholar will be accompanying you. He’s made something of a study of arcane machinery—it’s possible that his expertise may help. In theory he has a counterpart in Anuket City that should know more, but that other scholar has vanished.”
“Lucky him,” muttered Slate.
“You can’t expect this to work,” said Caliban, shifting in his seat.
The bald man made a wordless, irritable noise, like a man with a restless horse.
Caliban settled. “Even getting to Anuket City at this point is madness…unless things have changed since I went in the cell, there’s a no man’s land between us and them. ”
“Things have changed, all right,” said the Captain. “The no man’s land is about twice as big, for one thing.”
Caliban shook his head in disbelief.
“You note we’re using prisoners, not soldiers, and not just for deniability. The Dowager’s grasping at straws, if you ask me. But if you live through it, there’s a full pardon.” The Captain sounded unconvinced.
“What’s to keep me from leaving with the lady here and simply riding off?”
“Aww,” said Slate.
“Well, your word would be nice,” said the Captain. (Slate snorted.) “But failing that, the thing on your arm should do it.”
“What?” Caliban looked down at his arm.
Crudely rendered in black ink, a small toothy creature was portrayed with its teeth sunk into the flesh of Caliban’s arm. As art went, it was barely above a child’s drawing, but it had a primitive, scowling menace.
“What’s that supposed to be?”
“I haven’t any idea.” The Captain sighed. “But if you betray us, the tattoo will eat you.”
Caliban stared at him, then laughed. “You’re kidding. You can’t possibly be serious.”
“Oh, yes.”
“And they called me mad?”
He stood up.
“I wouldn’t—” Slate began.
Caliban yelped and slapped at his shoulder, like a man stung by a biting insect. His hand came away bloody, and not just from the freshly inked tattoo. Red beaded under the black ink teeth.
“Gods—hells—it bit me!”
“They do that,” said Slate tiredly. “I saw one eat a man once. He eventually cut his arm off, and it showed up on the stump a few days later. Don’t ask me to explain how it works.”
Caliban opened his mouth and said something, in a guttural sing-song that sounded like, “Ngha! Ngha’ha, ha, halihalikaliha!”
There was a brief, appalled silence.
“Ooookaaay…” said Slate, and sneezed explosively.
Shit. He is mad. Shit. The rosemary was trying to warn me off. Shit.
Maybe Brenner can kill him and dump him in an alley.
“Good god, you weren’t kidding, were you?” said the Captain.
The bald man laughed, revealing a stump of a missing tongue. Slate looked away, grimacing.
“That’s enough, Boran,” said the Captain. “Leave us.”
The tattoo artist packed his case away, and waved his fingers at Caliban and Slate, eyes twinkling. Neither of them returned his wave. He left, humming to himself.
Slate wondered vaguely where they’d found him. Minor wonderworkers were common enough, often possessing very specific talents. Still, what kind of turns did a life have to take before you discovered that your personal gift from the universe was making carnivorous tattoos?
Caliban sat down again, clearing his throat and glaring daggers at the Captain. When he spoke, he seemed to test the words first to make sure they were coming out correctly. “I can’t believe you’d do this to me. Particularly after I saved your—”
“Yes, well. Times change. People change.”
“Apparently so.”
Somebody’s pretty self-righteous for a nun-killer. This may be a long trip.
“I’m sending you off to die, anyway,” said the Captain, not meeting his eyes. “Do the job as best you can. You’ll probably be dead long before the tattoo gets any ideas—and if you do live, we’ll take it off you.”
Caliban turned his head away. Slate watched him fight himself visibly under control and decided to intervene.
“Great pep talk, Captain,” she said. “I know I’m inspired. Are you quite done? Can I take him away now?”
“You sure this is the only one you want?” the Captain asked her. “The Dowager said the prisons were opened, god help us all.”
Slate shrugged. “If you thought numbers would help, you’d send the army. He’ll do. I hope.”
“Sir Caliban?”
The knight opened his eyes and looked at them levelly. “My word would have been enough,” he said.
The Captain shrugged. “Then you’ve got nothing to worry about.
” And when Caliban simply gazed at him, he added, “Look, I don’t like this either.
But the Clockwork Boys have to be stopped, and soon.
We just don’t have the men to hold them off forever.
If this works—well, the gods can call me to account for it on the other side. ”
Caliban transferred his gaze to Slate. “That’s why you told me to run for it,” he said.
She nodded.
The Captain’s eyes flicked from one to the other, but he didn’t say anything.
“Why are you doing this?”
Slate pushed one of her sleeves up to the shoulder. Her own tattoo looked larger, perhaps because she was so much smaller. Jagged black teeth formed a semicircle halfway around the arm. The ink was not a great deal darker than her skin, but there was raw pink flesh under the creature’s teeth.
“Ah.”
When the tongueless wonderworker had given her the tattoo, the smell of rosemary had been so overpowering that the Captain and one of his men had to hold her steady while she sneezed and jerked.
It had been humiliating. Her nose had bled by the end of it, and her head had felt as if it were packed to the seams with wool.
The Captain had been apologetic. She’d ruined two of his handkerchiefs. Whatever he thought of himself, it did not involve holding down twitching women while tongueless wonderworkers etched curses into their flesh. Even if they were criminals.
“When is the scholar due to arrive?” Slate asked.
“He is supposed to arrive tomorrow or the next day. We expected you to leave in three to four days—are you sure you won’t stay at the palace?”
“No need, is there?” Slate smiled, because otherwise she thought she might cry. She slid off the desk. “Three days, then. You know where to find us.”
She led the way out the door, with the knight walking a single pace behind her.