Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Thanatists are forbidden from interfering with souls once they have reached the Asphodel Meadows.
—Precedent Law, Rule Four
I wove through a crowd in front of the Iron Horse, catching more than a few furtive glances from regulars.
I took a deep breath at the door and pushed in to a wash of candlelight.
The venue side was quiet, aside from Steppenwolf ’s “Renegade” playing softly from the house sound system.
Steppenwolf was Church’s comfort music. He was sitting in the pub at his classic-metal table with Lady, who was fidgeting with her needle, and Chuey, who was holding a History of Sound Design text—the Woodcrest Library at-risk-youth program had made readers of us both.
Jimmy was leaning against the bar nearby, his mop handle cradled against his shoulder.
Standing over them at the head of the table was a very tall man with narrow shoulders. I assumed this was Henry’s friend
Muster Brach.
He wore a long, black, tight-fitting coat with long, wide sleeves.
A double column of gold buttons ran up the front to a round filigreed collar.
Over his shoulder hung a matching black leather bag with gold stitching, and from his hip hung a violin bow.
His wiry white hair swept back from a deeply receding hairline.
And he had a full, grey, scratchy-looking beard, though his mustache was oddly black.
I squeezed the field manual in my left hand and started toward them. “Church, why’s everyone standing out front?”
“I thought this conversation best taken with a bit of discretion,” said Church.
Brach swung around smartly as I approached.
“You must be Jack Solomon.” “And I’m guessing you’re Muster Brach.
” I reached out to shake his hand. He gave my hand a strong pump as I looked down into his shadow.
It was dark, shimmering, and rimmed in gold like mine.
I was looking into an occlusion shaped like an eight-pointed star with a tobacco leaf at the center when Brach whispered “lumen.” All around us the candle flames
brightened and washed out his shadow.
“It does become habit forming,” said Brach, “looking into a man’s shadow before looking into his eyes.”
I lifted my gaze. “Sorry.”
Brach waved a hand, simultaneously dismissing my apology and returning the candles to normal. “Your friends tell me they’ve had no word from Henry since the incident.”
“How did you even find out there was an incident?” I asked.
“Many ears to the ground, as they say.” Brach tugged at one ear. “My people are among the few even looking for Henry.”
“He’s right,” said Church. “The recovery team in the alley last night bore the mark of the Shiguan.”
I thought back. “The inverted Y thing?”
Brach nodded and settled his gaze on me. “Have you remembered anything new about the attack? Anything that might help us find Henry?”
I shook my head.
“Time is not our friend,” said Brach. “If he escaped the attack, one of us should have heard from him by now. If he did not, well, each rebirth is more dangerous than the one before it and takes more time, but at this point we’re getting beyond . . . anyhow, if anyone can do it, it’ll be Henry.”
Church tamped his cane. “There was no body recovered. That’s a good sign. Let’s hold on to that.”
Brach pointed at my chest. “How about you? Still feeling the f ire of rebirth?”
I stared back at him. He seemed to know an awful lot. He glanced down at my shadow. “I can see the residue.”
“Burned off last night,” I told him. “Left me with a hell of a headache this morning, though.”
“Aches are good,” said Brach. “Helps a man know he’s alive. More to the point, though, Mr. Solomon, how are you faring with your new reality? Other than seeing the light in a man’s shadow?”
Before I could answer, Chuey chimed in, his voice low the way it got when it was just me and him talking. “Mi abuela told me stories about Luz Mala—a light that shines near the ground in certain places. My ancestors believed it was the light of lost souls who hadn’t moved on to heaven.”
“Not lost,” said Brach, giving us a long look. “Just not ready.”
“Well, if you’re asking about my readiness,” I said. “I won’t lie, man, it’s a lot to take in.”
“How about you?” Jimmy said, pointing his mop handle at Brach. “What have your folks learned about what happened to Henry?”
“Nothing useful,” said Brach. “But what I do know is that the Iron Horse is now at risk. Part of why I’m here is to understand who will serve as acting steward of the Abyssal Steps until either Henry returns or we know what’s happened to him.”
I looked around at my friends. “We’ll do it together.”
“But with you as its thanatist?” Brach reached out and gently took the field manual I still had in my hand. “Armed with this?”
“With all due respect,” said Church. “The lad was reborn not twenty-four hours ago.”
“Precisely my point.” Brach sighed. “Have you ever played the violin, Mr. Solomon?”
Chuey tapped my foot. “Careful, Jack, he’s going to hit you with a music metaphor.”
“Henry was teaching me,” I told him. “But he was doing it on a Viper.”
Brach chuckled. “Leave it to Henry to use a modern electronic toy when an original violin would have served so much better.”
He handed me back the field manual, pulled the violin bow from his belt and a lantern from his black leather bag. “You’ve read about these in your little book, no doubt.”
“They’re catalysts,” I said. “Thanaturgic tools—two of them, anyway. The lantern is used for combat, calling semblances, looking deeper into shadows—”
“And useless until you know how to bow correctly,” said Brach.
He whispered, “Burn,” and the stone set at the center of the lantern’s hourglass shape lit up.
He then took hold of the lantern by a pistol grip set at the center of one of the lantern’s three frame rods, explaining that holding the lamp this way stabilized it in battle.
Apparently the glass was typically shatterproof, and the thick rods could even be used to batter an enemy, almost like a clubbing someone with a dumbbell.
Then he drew the bow across one of its frame rods in a long, slow pull.
Light brightened from the stone, making my friends’ shadows leap with vague images, like half-formed memories that were gone just as fast as they appeared.
He then pulled two quick staccato strikes against the frame rod.
Bright light burst from the lantern and a gust of wind whipped through the pub, making the candles sputter.
Last, he drew a long, fast stroke. Beams of light reached toward my friends and touched their bindings, momentarily brightening them.
Church, Lady, and Jimmy straightened up, seeming instantly rested and alert.
“What the hell?” I muttered.
“These are fundamental bow strokes,” said Brach. “They were, respectively, revelatory, assault, and bracing. Of course, inside the ward an assault stroke can do no harm, but you understand its basic effect.”
He handed me the lamp and bow, which I took gingerly, half expecting the hot fire of rebirth to shoot up my arms. Nothing happened.
The catalysts seemingly useless in my hands.
Then Brach talked me through each stroke: bow grip, bow speed, bow angle, lantern position.
I repeated each one several times until the lantern stone finally sputtered to a dim glow.
“Not entirely without promise,” said Brach, taking back his catalysts. “You’ll want your own set sooner than later—black khopesh, and thanaturgic twine to start, especially if you’re going to stand in, even temporarily, for Henry to defend a failing ward.”
I remembered Henry’s journal. “Didn’t Henry ask you to help with the ward? Something about arcana?”
“Cython texts,” Brach practically whispered. “I’m afraid I haven’t found anything useful. But even without them, or any real proficiency with your thanaturgic craft, you might do more than Henry did to help the ward.”
“How so?” I asked.
Brach looked me in the eye. “Start in your circle of influence by reining in the decadent and historically ill-informed music that plagues your topside world.”
Jimmy pushed himself up off the bar. “Easy there, mate. I hardly think stifling creative thought—”
Brach shot him a hard stare.
I stepped between them. “What are you talking about?”
Brach put his catalysts away. “The present world either ignores the people and events of the past or it manufactures its own interpretation of them. Meanwhile, the people of the Strata rightly hold their own ideas about the past in which they live—ideas that I assure you are closer to the truth. Your world’s mistreatment of their history is fomenting dissent and anger in the world below, and it’s accelerating the ward’s decay. ”
I shook my head. “You’re saying our songs are destroying this . . . this barrier?”
“It isn’t only your music, but it begins there.” Brach took a step closer. “And it isn’t only the music you make, but all the music that isn’t made while you’re composing your rubbish, which ultimately means your world isn’t hearing the right songs.”
“The right songs?” I asked.
Brach sniffed. “Your neglect and revision of our world is killing the Strata. It arrives there in the memories of the newly dead. It seeps into
the ground and cascades down. Those who live below are growing restless for redress.”
I couldn’t wrap my head around everything he was saying. But part of it I understood well enough. “You want to control the kind of songs we can write. Is that one of the disagreements between you and Henry? Maybe something you’re angry with him about?”