The Blood Debt (54 page)

‘No. And that still feels strange to me. All my life I’ve put thoughts of you from my mind. I couldn’t let myself wonder where you were, what you were doing, what you were like. I couldn’t hope that I might meet you one day and tell you the truth. I certainly never thought I’d be in this position.’

‘What position?’

‘Helping you escape from my family, and Seirian’s. It’s like the past is repeating itself. I’m letting you go again. Only now I’ve seen you, come to know you — my child, Seirian’s son — it’s so much harder to let you go.’

Sal had never known how to feel about that. Somehow Highson
had
found the strength or courage, or whatever it had taken, to let Sal go a second time. He hadn’t pursued him across the Strand, for fear of the Syndic following; he had never been in touch. Highson Sparre had vanished out of Sal’s life as though he had never existed at all. Was that really the only way it could have gone?

For the Homunculus, everything was different.

‘Before I heard about your situation,’ Sal said slowly, ‘I felt something. A tear in the world. It nagged at me, made me nervous. I didn’t know what it was at first, but then Tom came and told us what he knew. You brought something out of the Void Beneath, and it seemed logical to assume that
this
was the tear I had been feeling. The hole you opened to let the Homunculus into the world.’

Highson went to say something, but Sal waved him silent.

‘That’s what I thought. I know now that I was wrong. The tear wasn’t how the Homunculus came into this world. If it was, I would have stopped feeling it ages ago, when it healed over. So the hole has to be the Homunculus itself. It’s a rip in the fabric of things — a rip that’s getting bigger, the longer it’s here. I can still feel it, out there, somewhere.’

Highson nodded. ‘I don’t know anything about rips or tears, but I know we have to work out why it’s here and what it wants. It saved me — once in the Void and then again in the desert. I’m bonded to it now. It owes me an
explanation.’
He took a deep breath. ‘I can’t go anywhere until I’ve got it.’

Sal felt incredibly weary. ‘Then I guess I’ll have to help you.’

‘No, Sal. You’ve done too much already.’

‘I can hardly leave you here at Marmion’s mercy, can I? And I’m not letting you go off on another mad march across the country. Not on your own. There might be no one to rescue you at the end of that journey.’

‘Marmion thinks we’re already there — that the Homunculus is going to come back to Laure, where it’s been heading all this time. Don’t you agree?’

Sal thought of what he had seen in the last moments before his connection with Kail had snapped, and shook his head. It wasn’t the time to tell anyone about that. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that if the Magister decides to formally charge us with something, the point will be completely moot.’

Highson nodded, looking puzzled at first, then letting the subject go. His gaze drifted back out to the city’s drowned carriageways and paths. A handful of miners were circling in the quiet morning air, examining the damage. The eagles hadn’t returned to the top of Observatory Tower.

Sal felt bruised and empty inside, as though part of himself had been forcibly ripped from him. What that part was, he didn’t know for certain: the memory of rejection; or perhaps the wounded pride that had clung to that memory for five years; or something else entirely. But its absence ached in him. He felt hunched over, persistently askew although he tried to sit straight.

‘It’s going to take them a while to work out whether to be happy or not,’ Highson said.

‘Who?’

‘The people who live here. They wanted water, and now they’ve got it. But at what cost? How will they make their living with the Divide flooded? I don’t envy them the next few months.’

Neither did Sal. But, looking at his father rather than the view, he understood that Highson was lying.

* * * *

Word came at lunchtime that the Magister would conduct a hearing the next morning in order to decide the fate of the visitors to the city. Sal, already chafing at having been cooped up for so long, didn’t know how to take the news. On the one hand, he was glad that the wheels of Laure’s bureaucracy were turning quickly. On the other, he was nervous of what the Magister’s decision would be. If it went well for them, they could be freed by noon. If it went badly, they might never see the sun again. Or worse.

In order to keep himself occupied, he sought out the hostel owner and asked for a favour.

‘What do you people want now?’ Urtagh exclaimed, hands raised in a dramatic gesture, the veins in his ruddy jowls primed to pop. ‘More food? My best wine? My daughter? And why not? You’ve cast my business into disrepute. The guards have sealed the doors so paying customers can’t get in. Take what’s left, why don’t you? I’m already ruined!’

Sal soothed him. ‘You’ll be compensated. Don’t worry. The Alcaide’s pockets are deep.’

‘You say that
now.
How are you going to pay your bill if you’re locked in a dungeon?’

‘Is that all you can think of? What about the extra business that’s going to come through here with the Divide flooded? People will be able to cross anywhere now, not just at Tintenbar and the Lookout. There’ll be a fishing industry, tourism, and trade. You’ll make up your losses in a week!’

Urtagh was only slightly mollified. ‘Okay, okay. How can I help you? I’m all out of playing cards.’

‘I want a stick. A straight one, tall enough to walk with.’

Urtagh eyed him grumpily. ‘What for?’

‘Just put it on the bill. I’ll charm that smoky fireplace of yours if it comes within the hour.’

It came in half that time, not the best piece of silky oak he could have hoped for but perfectly straight and just the right height. When he had finished with the fireplace, Sal unfolded the pocketknife he kept under the false bottom of his pack and began to carve.

* * * *

‘Don’t act so disappointed,’ said Marmion in a peevish voice. ‘I may not look like much, but it’s going to take a lot more than this to put me out of action. Stubbornness runs in my mother’s side of the family.’

Marmion glanced down at where his right hand used to be, then back up again. His eyes were red-rimmed but determined. Only the greyness of his skin indicated that he had been on the threshold of death at least twice in the previous day, according to his healers.

Sal was watching Shilly, who had opened her mouth to say something, perhaps about Marmion’s mother’s family. She held the pose for a heartbeat, then pursed her lips and leaned with both hands on her new walking stick.

Just moments earlier, word had come that Marmion was awake and working on their appeal to the Magister. They had hurried to the communal dining area to find him propped up with cushions and his arm in a sling, still dressed in a nightgown. His mood was one of defensive dignity. Every now and again he went to use his right hand, and through that tiny chink in his armour Sal glimpsed a world of hurt.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Skender.

‘So am I,’ Marmion said without looking at him, ‘but there’s no point dwelling on trivialities when we’ve lost the Homunculus, a far more important thing than one hand. How are we going to ensure that we remain free to find it?’

Almost everyone was present to work on that question, seated on chairs, benches and tabletops around the makeshift stretcher Marmion occupied. There had, apparently, been a huge row with the guards over Mawson. During the attack of the man’kin, they had insisted on taking the bust into captivity. Fearing that he would end up smashed to pieces by some disgruntled captain, Abi Van Haasteren had pointed out that a creature with neither arms nor legs was unlikely to do any damage to anyone. The guards had reluctantly acquiesced and let him stay.

The only person missing was Chu. As a Laurean citizen, she required different treatment to the visitors — and nothing Skender could say made a difference. In her absence, he was like an overwound spring, too full of energy to relax but with no way of letting off steam. Sal still didn’t know exactly what was going on between the two, and he suspected Skender didn’t either. That ambiguity only contributed to the awfulness of waiting.

Censers burned incense in all four corners of the room, filling it with the smoky scent of desert plum.

‘Unfortunately,’ said Marmion, ‘the Magister is well within her rights to press charges. We did subvert her authority and break the laws of this city. The Alcaide can apply pressure for clemency, later, but that doesn’t help us right now. We don’t know how much time we have. Even a single night might cost us dearly.’

‘You’re still going to go through with it?’ asked Shilly. ‘After all we’ve learned?’

‘What we have learned only increases my certainty that the Homunculus is dangerous. It must be stopped.’

‘And how exactly do you think you’re going to accomplish that without Kail?’

‘It must be coming to Laure. Its path led right here, and the flood will only have delayed it. We have to be ready for it when it arrives.’ Marmion’s stare dared her to defy him. ‘I can assure you that we are perfectly capable, even without Kail.’

With his left index finger, he drew a shape on the table in front of him: a D lying on its back, as large as a small book. Sal heard a faint buzzing and knew instantly what Marmion was doing. Before the warden had completed the sign, his finger was tracing it through a faint layer of dew.

Marmion was using the Change.

A gasp went up from the other wardens. Abi Van Haasteren raised an eyebrow. Shorn Behenna’s scowl deepened. Breaking the oaths of the Novitiate was a serious matter. For that alone, Behenna had been stripped of his rank and sent into exile. Sal couldn’t tell exactly how he was doing it, but whether Marmion was using the power of the deeper desert or the bloodwork of the yadachi, it ran against everything the man had been taught: that in the Interior, a Sky Warden was too far from the sea to use the Change.

‘The Divide is flooded,’ Marmion explained. ‘Water has returned to the Interior. Nothing will be the same again.’

Sal stood.

‘I’m afraid it’s not going to be that simple.’

Every eye in the room swivelled to focus on him. He didn’t flinch from their scrutiny. The time had come to unburden himself, and to make sure the conversation wasn’t diverted too far from what mattered.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Marmion.

‘You’re so certain that the twins are headed for Laure. Why? Yes, the city lies right in their path, and once we ruled out the Aad, this seemed like the only alternative. But Pirelius had to drag them here by force. They pressed constantly to be allowed to go elsewhere.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘You’re not the only one who talked to Kail.’

Marmion nodded. ‘I wondered about that. Go on.’

‘Just before the flood hit, Kail spoke to the Homunculus. You were injured, so you couldn’t have heard what the twins said, and Skender was busy saving you.’ Sal and Skender had agreed to keep the details of how Pirelius had died a secret, out of respect for the missing tracker. ‘I’m the only one who heard.’

‘Heard what?’

‘Kail asked the twins what they wanted at Laure. They said:
nothing.
He didn’t believe them, so he asked again. Why would they have travelled all that distance with nothing at the end of it? It didn’t make sense.

‘The twins replied that their journey wasn’t over yet. The thing they were looking for was still ahead of them. They didn’t know how far away it was. They didn’t know how long it would take them to get there. All they had was a direction.’

‘Did they say what the direction was?’ asked Shilly, looking at him in surprise. Sal hadn’t told anyone about what he had overheard Kail say, not even — especially — her.

‘Did they say what they were looking for?’ added Highson.

‘No. They just pointed northeast.’

Marmion exhaled noisily. Sal could understand what he was feeling. Frustration that, if what Sal said was true, his mission might not be nearly over yet; anger that his plans had been trumped yet again; uncertainty over whether this new intelligence was trustworthy or not.

‘It changes nothing,’ Marmion said. ‘We still have to convince the Magister that we should be freed — and quickly. Let’s concentrate on tomorrow for now, and work out what to do the day after that another time.’

‘Just don’t assume,’ said Sal, ‘that it’ll be easy.’

‘Believe me,’ said Marmion, ‘I won’t.’

Sal nodded and sat down. That was enough for now.

* * * *

After nightfall, in their room, Shilly asked Sal why he hadn’t told her about Kail’s conversation with the Homunculus. She had spent the night reading a book from the hostel’s meagre library while Skender and Sal challenged two of the guards to a prolonged game of Double Advance — anything to distract themselves from the uncertainty of their fate. Despite the day’s preparations, everyone was nervous about the following morning. Marmion had endured long enough to eat a small evening meal, then had retired to his room to recuperate.

‘I didn’t tell you,’ Sal said sombrely, ‘because we were never alone. There was always someone listening in, watching us.’

She nodded and pulled him closer. Her eyes hung heavily. The mattress beneath them was softer than they were used to in Fundelry, and he could tell by the way she moved that her leg still bothered her. That always made her tired.

‘Do you think he’s dead?’ she asked, running a cool hand across his sunburn.

‘Kail?’ He thought for a moment. ‘Maybe. He was thoroughly drained at the end. I don’t know if he had the strength to swim a stroke. You can bet that Marmion’s looked for him, and if he hasn’t found anything then I don’t think we should hold out much hope.’

Shilly didn’t respond. Her breathing became deeper and slower, and the muscles of her face relaxed.

Sal relaxed too, glad that he had avoided the issue of Kail’s final words for one more night. He didn’t completely understand why keeping them from her was so important to him. Part of it was obvious: he had seen the way she looked at Marmion, how his very existence confused and hurt her.
He’s the closest thing I’ve got to family,
she had said to Sal the previous day,
apart from you.