Chapter 32
Evening fell slowly over Lacanthim. I sat at Ana’s window, my blood thrumming in me as I peered at the tavern across the lane from us. “It all looks well, ma’am.”
“How well?” Ana demanded from her bed. “It must look as if all the taverns and homes about this place are perfectly normal, boy. He will not come if he senses a trap.”
“I can see nothing untoward in the dark, ma’am. But you’re sure he’d attempt such a mad thing?”
“Yes, certainly. You and I and all the rest of the tavern dwellers here are all surely conditioned. One need only play the proper song on that accursed pipe, and we would all be spellbound by the web’s mesmerism.
A person could come and go as you please, take whatever they wish from this place, and we’d never even know it.
He has heard by now that I have evidence.
He will come.” She twitched. “Speaking of which, boy, you need to get to your own chambers. It won’t do to have you peering out my window.
It’s well-known by now I always keep it shut. Just remember the signals.”
I smirked.
“Well, yes, I know you will remember,” said Ana. “Just do it properly.”
“I shall, ma’am. I’ll be ready.”
I left her chambers, returned to my own, dimmed the mai-lamp at my corner, and opened my window.
From here I could see a great deal of the lane leading west out of town, along with many taverns and a few sotbars running all along it. Most of the windows were alight, with lanterns and lamps hanging from their ceilings or eaves, but my eye lingered on two inns specifically.
A window down there at the Tottering Hand, on the third floor. A small, pale blue lamp shone just on the windowsill. I could barely make out the form of a figure hunched behind it: a custodi officer, I knew, with a vantage point facing north.
My eye drifted to my left, toward another lamp in another window on another street, this one viewing the other side of our tavern. This officer was on the second floor of the Empress Forgotten, watching another set of lanes.
Enough eyes, I hope, I thought. Enough bodies watching. I just hope they all stay awake.
With that, I pulled a small bottle of clariphage from my pocket and took a sip. I cringed as the stimulant simmered in my stomach, shook myself, and watched the street, and the lamps, and the wet roofs of Lacanthim as night came on.
—
The hours passed. Lacanthim surged and sang and sighed below me.
How strange it was to see the field hands and the drovers and the flensing folk come to the town for their daily tasks, even though wild madness had swept over the fields and forests beyond.
Their complacency struck a sour note with me—for of course they labored on.
Beef was too valuable. It would surely overcome this string of deaths, eventually.
The late night dwindled, and full dark took the city. The lamps went out, one by one, until only a handful remained—including, of course, the two I watched so closely.
I sipped my clariphage and felt my fingers grip my sword.
She had said it would work. So it would work.
Then there: the lamp in the Empress Forgotten flashed once. I turned to it, all my attention fixated on that pale sphere of luminescence suspended in the shadows.
I waited. I waited for what felt like ages, my pulse pounding behind my eyes, the clariphage dancing in my blood.
Then, finally, it flashed once more—but just the once.
I let out a breath. False alarm, then. Someone suspicious had been spied walking that way, apparently, but it was not our killer.
I sighed, exhausted by the tension. What a fatiguing thing stress could be: a handful of tense seconds stole hours of energy from you. I slumped on my stool, sipped more clariphage, and blinked my dry eyes.
More time passed. Minutes, perhaps an hour.
Then the lamp in the Tottering Hand flashed once.
I blinked, surprised, and turned to it, watching it carefully, unwilling to blink even once more.
I swallowed, leaning forward on my stool.
Then it flashed two more times.
“He’s here,” I said softly. “By hell, he’s come.”
I slowly eased off my stool. I took a step back but did not leave my chambers. I needed to see three flashes before we were to spring our trap.
I waited, shifting my weight between my feet, trying to bring warmth and blood back to my stiffened joints. Combat seemed unlikely, given the sheer number of officers who would be converging on the target, but Ana’s warning rang in my ears: People do all manner of dumb shit when cornered.
The lamp flashed three times.
I flew to the door, flung it open, and leapt down the stairs.
The street was all chaos and confusion when I burst out the doors of the Green Drover.
Every lane was suddenly swarming with custodi officers, all bearing lamps and crying, “Halt, halt!” or “Do you have him? Where is he?” I nearly gave in to the impulse to do the same, hurtling about screaming for the night to give me answers, yet I could see that there were so many custodi present that escape would have been impossible.
Then a shout from the corner: “We have him! We have him here!”
I shot forward, my sword bobbing in its scabbard at my side.
A group of custodi were holding a man there in the street before the Tottering Hand.
His head was bowed so I could not see his face, but I recognized the instrument that lay in the mud before him all too well: so much like Ana’s shawm, yet more complex, with far more fluting than a common instrument.
“What was he doing?” I asked quickly.
“Walking up the lane there, sir,” said one of the custodi restraining him. She nodded toward the lane beyond. “Approaching with that thing in his hands. That’s a cat pipe if ever I saw one.”
I reached forward and gently pushed the fellow’s head back.
The face of a young Tala man stared up at me, narrow and handsome, with almond eyes and a thick crop of black hair.
His eyes were hazy, as if he suffered some affliction, and his cheeks and mouth were slack.
Something about this put a thread of fear into my heart.
I took a breath and consulted my memories: every face I’d seen, every person I’d glimpsed—not just here, but ever, in all my life.
“I do not know this boy,” I said.
Seriv pushed through to the front of the group. “No, sir? You’ve never seen him?”
“No. Never.”
Seriv studied the boy as well. “Nor I. He could be anyone.” He snapped his fingers before the young man’s eyes. “Well? What have you to say for yourself?”
The boy was silent, but he continued struggling, attempting to stand and walk.
“He will not speak,” mused Seriv. “Does that mean guilt?”
“No,” I said, sighing. “It doesn’t. It means he’s under the influence of the web.”
The custodi slowly turned to look at me.
“What?” said one.
“You think…” said Seriv.
“Yes. I think this boy was conditioned to hold that pipe and walk. A simple thing to get someone to do. Likely he’s a cat herder, one of the hands who leads the cats about in the fields. He’s nothing to do with this at all, probably.”
Seriv stared down at the boy, dismayed. “They saw it was a trap, then?”
“Yes. And sent this boy ahead to make sure.” I stared off into the night. “I suspect they’ve fled.”
He cursed loudly. “Then we’ll go searching. They can’t have gone far! We’ll check the lanes and the streets beyond and find the bastard’s trail!”
I watched, crestfallen, as Seriv and many of his officers charged off into the night, lanterns raised high, their pale blue lights washing up the fretvine walls of the taverns. I could not help but feel that they’d have no luck tonight: just like always, the killer remained just beyond our reach.
There was a distant shout from some balcony to keep the noise down, folk were trying to sleep. I instructed the custodi who held the boy to take him to the Orbiis office for testing, then entered the Green Drover and began to ascend the stairs to report to Ana.
It had all seemed so certain. Ana’s instincts were rarely amiss in such matters: once she had made up her mind about a person, she could play them like a harp.
I came to the top step, turned to walk toward her rooms, then paused.
What if, perhaps, the boy with the pipe had not been sent here as a test—but as a diversion?
I recalled the lamp in the window of the Empress Forgotten. It had flashed once—a false alarm, I’d deemed it, signaling that someone had been spotted approaching, but they hadn’t turned toward the tavern.
Unless, I thought, it was the killer. And they were waiting for their distraction on the south end to draw us all away.
I murmured, “Oh, damn it,” then turned to rush back down the stairs.
But before I ever stepped down once, I heard the song, and all went black to me.
—
I was again standing in my chambers in the Green Drover, stripped to the waist. I could not move. But this time it was not as if my bones were leaden, or frozen in space: instead, to not move, to be still, to keep my limbs precisely where they were, was the most beautiful thing I could imagine.
My ears were filled with music, with voices, with song. It was heavenly, angelic, ecstatic, greater than the greatest balm a reagent could ever grant me, more joyous than any coupling I’d ever experienced. Woven throughout this ethereal music was a single command: Still. Be still. Do not move.
I did so, and thus my heart was filled with joy, my soul bathed in ecstasy beyond any embrace, and the only fear I could imagine was that this sensation might end.
It was as if I had found my truest purpose in all creation, the fate that had awaited me through all the tangles of time—and now I would nestle within it and know everlasting peace.
Yet…then, slowly, the joy dimmed in my mind.
I paused and blinked.
No…no, this is not quite so, I said so myself. I wasn’t in my chambers, was I? I had been on the stairs of the Drover. I had realized that something in the street…something in the street had been quite wrong…