Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The dispossessed body of a thanatist will remain pliable and incorruptible, ready for the return of its spirit, until its soul has moved beyond the mountain of fire.
—The Care of Flesh: A Guide for the Wize
Everyone inside Rats Castle turned their eyes on me as Cassius’s friend gripped my hand in a painful clench. The fiddler stopped playing.
Chatter subsided. In the dim light of a few gas lamps, the king rat looked me up and down.
“Nothing on you but a khopesh,” Mick finally said. “You’re fresh fish, indeed.”
I squeezed his hand as hard as I could. “I’m new maybe, but not stupid.
” Mick laughed. “Word’s out, lad. Strata Chancery’s after you.
Men twice as mean and half as guilty have gone by the way under their judgment.
Bloody hell, Captain Burton holds our chancellor’s seat, and he once killed a boy for watching him take a piss. ”
“That is hardly a fair or accurate distillation of the man,” Cassius said. “Ah, but my dear Cassius,” said Mick, “Burton is no longer a man, is he? Rather, he is a judge in a forever seat, who is spoken of poorly in the mouths of mortals.”
“Truth will defeat accusation,” Cassius argued.
Mick looked back at me and spoke quietly. “Watch yourself, Mr. Solomon. Whatever grievance takes you to trial is not a trifling thing. But as yet, you look a trifling man.”
The king rat’s shadow bore the gold rim of a thanatist. Up close I could see a cloudy film in his eyes, but it didn’t prevent him from piercing me with his gaze.
Cassius broke the tension. “So, then, help us untrifle him. To start, he needs a lantern.”
Mick finally let go of my hand and sat behind his table of offerings again. “What do you know about flame, fresh fish?”
“A little,” I said.
“Your shadow is raw but potent to my eyes,” said Mick. “So tell me, what do you see inside my shadow?”
“You’re a thanatist, and you seem content . . . but with a good many sizable occlusions in the pattern—”
Mick laughed like a buzzsaw. He reached back and pulled a brass lantern from a shelf behind him and set it on the table between us.
It was heavily dented but compact and clean.
It had no wick, only a clamp and harness inside the glass, with brass rods framing the glass on the outside.
It also had a pistol grip at the center of one of the rods—similar to those I’d seen on several thanatist lanterns by that point.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a copper-colored stone about an inch in diameter.
“Ghost stone,” he said. He opened the lantern, fastened the stone with the harness, and closed it again.
He then whispered, “Burn,” and the stone flared a deep amber color.
With a flourish, he produced a short violin bow from a clip on his belt.
“You ever used a lamp and bow?” Mick asked. “Once,” I said.
Mick held the catalysts out to me. “Let’s see yer form.”
Trying to remember everything I’d read and everything Brach had shown me, I took the lamp first, grabbing it by the pistol grip at the center of one frame rod.
The finger grooves felt worn and comfortable.
And the lantern was well balanced—heavier than I might have thought, but all the better for bashing someone in close quarters.
Then I took the bow and attempted a revelatory stroke.
The ghost stone sputtered and died. I tried a blinding stroke.
Barely a dull glimmer. In frustration, I pulled hard for a bracing stroke, which only managed to knock Mick’s pipe to the floor.
“You play like a half-hour gentleman.” Mick laughed.
“All that fancy technique’ll get you killed in an alley fight. ”
Mick grabbed the lamp and bow from me and whipped out a bracing stroke using just a bit of the bow turned on its edge. He flashed a blinding stroke by pulling the lamp at the same time he pushed the bow—happened in half the time and left spots in my eyes for several seconds.
He showed me some other bow techniques, running them off the way a guitar player demos a new six-string. It reminded me of the difference between street fights and boxing.
Then he drew the bow across one lantern rod in a long pull. The thanaturgic light brightened from amber to nearly white. “Now tell me what you see.”
His pattern of gleam notes lit in slow, dull succession.
Six notes up, then six down. They scanned like an elegy.
And they played as if across a wrinkled sheet of music, wet with tears.
One scar was far larger than the rest, but for some reason, I couldn’t see anything inside the occlusions themselves.
Somehow he was toying with me—I should at least see something.
“That’s what I thought,” said Mick. “But don’t get poked up by your mediocrity.”
Before he stopped bowing, I instinctively hummed a few of the notes I saw in his shadow. And in the same way my song had brightened my own occlusion like an ember touched by wind, the image behind Mick’s scar started to clear.
“White flowers . . . ,” I said.
Before I could bring it all together, Mick held up a small hand lantern and washed away his shadow.
“That’s called playing defense.” He shut down both lanterns. “Good trick to learn, so’s lampmen don’t go looking where they oughtn’t.”
“Like looking at lilies on a grave marker?” I asked.
Mick’s face went slack. “No, son. At least, not for most of us. I’m not sure how you were able to see so deep, but you ever mention my lilies again and it’ll be the last time. Ya follow?”
Mick’s long bow-pull was known as the revelatory stroke because it yielded light by which a thanatist could peer deeper into a soul’s shadow. But it seemed it was the few notes of song I’d added that had made the difference.
There’d been nothing in the books about music as any kind of catalyst, and I didn’t want to get into it. So, I finally just nodded.
Mick tipped back his derby. “Regardless how you did it, you’re still going to need a lamp to light the shadow first, not to mention a lamp bow. And in case ya haven’t heard, lamp bows aren’t just so much horsehair. Rather, shadesmane are they. Expensive stuff.”
I’d read about shadesmane—a catalyst hair harvested from rare Strata-creatures known as shades. It could pull sound from any surface you bowed it with, not just strings. “How much for both?”
Before he could answer, a man in a tailor’s apron careened through the door and crashed to the floor. Behind him came three dark-clad thanatists, lanterns and bows hanging from their belts. Crescent moons tattooed on their cheeks.
Mick put down the lantern and pointed at the tailor. “It’s very simple, Owen. We keep you safe; you make it worth our while to do so.”
“I don’t have—”
One of the thanatists, a woman, rushed forward and kicked the tailor full in the face. Blood splattered over the gritty hardwood floor, and the tailor dropped flat.
The tailor couldn’t seem to lift his head. “It’s all bought up, Mick. I can’t even get material to spin new thread. The Dials are empty. All the markets are empty.”
The woman kicked him again and stomped her boot down on the back of his head. The tailor’s nose and lips crunched against the floor, pushing gouts of blood out around his face.
“I seem to recall assurances,” said Mick, “when you put your name in my book, to supply eight shillings’ worth of bunda thread.”
Owen nodded slowly. “I’m sorry, Mick. I thought I could get the silk and nettle to spin it.”
“Your mark there’s good on the name of your wife and daughter. What say you?”
The tailor struggled to raise his head and looked at Mick. His mouth and chin were slick with blood. “Please—”
The thanatist woman stepped toward him again, her long, blond braid swaying behind her.
“What did he do?” I asked, stepping between Owen and the woman. The two other thanatists immediately flanked me. Tall men, but not muscular. One had a grey mustache and beard; the other was clean-shaven with a cleft lip. The woman turned to Mick. “This one have your
protection?”
Mick eased back in his chair. “You need my help, fresh fish?”
I handed Cassius my knife and squared on the woman. “You beating this man on account of a debt?”
She spat on Owen’s back. “He’s a pigeon-livered delinquent.” “How much does he owe?” I asked.
“We ain’t looking for coin.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” I said, “but here’s the thing.
This is my thread-man. If you insist on hurting him, you’re kind of forcing me to do something about it.
Or, I can make good on what he owes. Mick gets paid.
No one gets hurt. And I keep the good hands of my thread-man.
” The other two goons stared at me while she looked me up and down.
“You’re new,” she said. “You reek of it. I think maybe someone needs to teach you where not to shine your light.”
I’d never been one to go looking for a fight. But I’d been on the short end of the odds many times myself. It was hard for me to look the other way. Sometimes, you just had to step in.
“Yeah, probably,” I said. “But by the time that happens, a couple of you might regret wanting to do the teaching. See, I know Precedent Law forbids knife use against another thanatist, and this here”—I motioned to the four of us about to take it to fists—“is the most normal thing that’s happened to me in days.
I kind of hope you want to go the hard way with it. So, what’s it going to be?”
Owen hadn’t moved. He just lay there on the floor, blood pooling below his face. Around us the other patrons shouted for us to “pitch into” one another.
The woman finally grinned. “A topsider willing to die proud,” she said. Then she and her two cohorts fell back.
I dug out my silver, having no way of knowing whether it was enough, and dropped the bag on Mick’s table. I’d have nothing to buy catalysts with, but I’d have to deal with that later.
“That’s everything,” I said. “Take it and strike the tailor’s name from your books.”
Mick riffled through the bag. “It’s light.” Then he smiled. “But I’ve never seen anyone stand down a Dusker. That might have been pay enough.” Nevertheless, he shoved the bag of silver in his pocket and made a note in his ledger.
“Dusk Parade.” Cassius handed me back my knife. “One of the five schisms. Brigands who would as soon watch the world burn.”
I picked up the lantern. “Every badass is still an ass.”
“I do not think it always necessary for you to express yourself with invective, Jack.” Cassius meant it, but his face held the hint of a smile, too.
Owen dragged himself up, and a couple of Mick’s rats rushed in to throw sand over all the blood.
“St. Giles carpet,” said Mick. “Fit for a king. Owen, you’re free to go.” The tailor hobbled out of Rats Castle.
Cassius turned to me. “While a decent gesture, Jack, you now have no money left with which to secure the Orcus thread.”
“Orcus thread?” said Mick, raising an eyebrow. “Is that why yer here?
What in all the Strata would you want that for?”
There were suddenly a dozen sweaty men listening to our exchange. “Let’s just say I’ve got friends who need help,” I told him.
Mick laughed his buzzsaw laugh. “Haven’t we all. Well, my new friend, you’ll go away empty-handed. I wouldn’t sell you Orcus thread even if I had some to spare. Not for a boatload of coins.”
“Because Orcus thread is illegal,” came a voice from behind us. Cassius and I whipped around to find Brach standing just inside the door.