The Madness Project (The Madness Method) (41 page)

Shade dropped his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.  “Do
you know anything about Alby Durb?”

“Oh, doll,” she said, straightening up and shaking her
head.  “Just dreadful business, that.  Just heard about it myself, not ten
minutes back.  Such a terrible thing.  But no, I don’t know what happened to
him.  Think the coroner said it was a bad heart, but that sounds awful
suspicious to me, you know?  I mean, it was
Alby Durb
.  He’s got enemies
enough for a whole kingdom.”

Shade just watched her quietly, but I saw the knot at the
corner of his jaw, and the hardness of his eyes.  When Astel’s gaze flicked
back up to him, the phantom anger vanished and the indifferent mask reappeared
like he’d never felt a thing in his life.  It was a neat trick; I envied him
that ability.

“Yeah, it’s terrible,” he said, ducking his head and
studying his fingers as they drummed on the counter.  “Well, just thought I’d
see if you’d heard anything else about it.”

“Sorry, sweetheart, that’s all I’ve got.  But, you know.” 
She smiled, coy.  “Come back later and I might know something more.”

He smiled and gave the counter a final double tap, then
turned without a word.  By the time I realized he was leaving, he had already
reached the door.  I muttered a goodbye to the waitress and rushed after him. 
He didn’t slow down or stop, not till we’d got clear of the restaurant and
turned down a narrower side street—the kind where folks like us felt most at home. 
Then he swore something fierce and kicked a half-rotted crate, so hard that it
crashed in a shower of splinters.

“Shade?  What’s wrong?”

“Alby Durb is dead.  Derrin said I had three days to figure
out what to do about him, but he went around me and offed him before I even had
a chance.”  He dug his fingers against the back of his head, pacing back and
forth.  “He’s dead and those poor folks are going to have hell riding them down
the rails.”

He turned, his gaze on me like he didn’t quite see me,
wide-eyed and terrible.

“Stars, I didn’t want it to come to this.”

“You think Derrin killed him?” I whispered. 

I almost didn’t want to ask it.  I knew Derrin wasn’t
perfect, and I knew he had a temper you’d never much want to face, but to
kill
a man… He wouldn’t do it, not unless he had a good reason to.  He had to have a
reason.

“If he didn’t do it himself, I’m dead sure he’s behind it. 
A word, a nod to the right person, and Durb was good as dead.  And it’s
my
fault!
”

He shouted the last two words, his hands in fists, horror in
his eyes.  I wanted to try to console him, somehow, but I knew he’d never let
me close.  He’d never even admit he needed it.

We returned to the Hole in silence.  It was getting on
towards dinner, but part of me hoped Derrin wouldn’t show.  I didn’t really
fancy watching a confrontation between those two.  But I knew Shade wouldn’t
stop hunting till he’d got his answers, and just being around him right now was
exhausting.  He might respect Derrin, but he didn’t worship him the way the rest
of the skitters did.  The way I did.  So when we walked through the gate and
found Derrin leaning against the factory wall, I flinched and tried to walk
away…and failed. 

I just froze and watched as Shade strode straight up to
Derrin, grabbed his shirt front, and punched him square in the face.  Derrin
reeled and stumbled against the building, but Shade just stepped back, shaking
out his hand and glaring at Derrin like a blaze of lightning.

“Derrin!” I cried, finally shaking myself out of my stupor
and running toward them.  “Shade, what’d you punch him for?”

Derrin staggered upright and wiped blood from his lip, but
he didn’t strike back.  He just measured Shade quietly with a look rather like
respect.

“I’m sorry, Shade,” he murmured.  “I didn’t do it.  I just
heard what happened.”

“But you
made
it happen.”  Shade clenched and
loosened his fist.  “Whoever you told.  That’s the reason Alby Durb is dead.”

“No, unfortunately,
you’re
the reason Alby Durb is
dead.  He had it coming, one way or another.”

“Derrin, what’ll happen to the Bricks?” I asked.  “Who’ll
protect them now?”

“Hopefully we will,” he said, turning to me like he was
surprised I was there.  “That was the idea.”

“And if they won’t come?”

“Then that’s their own fault.”

Shade cast his head back and stared at the sky.  He had that
little line of pain drawn across his brow again, the one that I’d seen when
he’d gone off about the moon singing.  But he didn’t make any quirk comments
this time.  He just sighed and turned away, and disappeared into the Hole.

“Actions have consequences,” Derrin said, watching him go. 
“He’s got to learn that.”

“But at the cost of someone’s life?  That’s just wrong,
Derrin.”

“I know.  Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid, will
you?  I’ve got to get him to meet Kantian.  Kantian doesn’t trust him quite
yet, but I’m not surprised at that.”

I nodded.  Before I turned to go, I squinted up at him in
the growing twilight.  “Is your mouth a’right?”

He gave a rueful kind of laugh and gingerly touched the
split in his lip.  “It’ll be fine.  Nothing Doc can’t fix up.”

I shivered.  I’d heard rumor of the Clan’s Blood mage, but
I’d never seen him, and didn’t much care to.  Bloods were a tricky sort, in
general.  Folks said they spent too much time straddling the line between the
living and the dead, and were half-specter themselves. 

“I don’t really blame him,” Derrin said, soft, as I headed
toward the stairs.  “I regret my own part in what happened.”

I just nodded and headed down into the Hole in silence. 
Shade didn’t come into the mess at dinner, and when I made my way into the
barracks after, I found him sitting on his bed, with Bugs perched at the foot,
yammering on and on about nothing at all.  I watched a minute, smiling in spite
of myself.  Shade didn’t ignore Bugs the way Jig always did.  Even though I
couldn’t hear what he said, I could tell he was answering Bugs’ infinite
questions, the stony anger about him crumbling bit by bit under the kid’s
relentless joy.  Somehow I almost envied Bugs his ability to make Shade smile.

Chapter 18 — Tarik

I watched Derrin threading his way through the cots toward
me, not a hint of a wound anywhere on his face, and not even a whisper of
anger, either.  He just came up and stood by my bed, and smiled when he saw
Bugs curled up at the foot where he’d fallen asleep only moments before.

“Shade, Kantian wants to see you,” he said softly.

My stomach gave a little lurch.  “Now?”  I caught his gaze
and added, a touch too viciously, “You’re not afraid I’ll punch
him?
”

“I trust you have enough sense not to.”

He backed a step and waited for me, so I drew a deep breath
and stood up as quietly as I could to avoid waking Bugs.  As we headed across
the barracks under the curious eyes of the other skitters, Derrin turned to me
and said,

“Listen, I know you don’t like what happened to Alby Durb. 
It wasn’t my wish, either.  But if you want to stay with us here, you have
got
to hold your tongue.  Kantian doesn’t trust you yet, and any smart talk from
you will land you outside the gate.  I can’t vouch for your condition when you
land, either.”

“Understood,” I said.

We came to a large room at the back of the barracks.  It was
much longer than it was wide, with a bed screened off at one end and a massive
desk next to a furnace at the other.  I got my first good look at Kantian as
Derrin led me through the room.  He sat behind his desk, the furnace flames
casting the lines of his face into deep shadow.  Even bent over a piece of
writing paper he had a formidable air, and when he finally glanced up to
acknowledge us, I felt suddenly small and exposed.

“So,” he said, setting aside his pen and folding the bottom
half of his paper up, as if I might have tried to read it from behind the
desk.  “You’re the Mask.”

“Yes sir,” I said, keeping my voice as neutral as possible.

“Heard you got our boy Durb’s name for Derrin here.  Good on
you for that.”

I nodded, because I didn’t trust myself to answer without
calling him something I’d regret.

“Istian boy, are you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“How are things going there, with the accord and all that
hubbub?”

I hesitated.  “Honestly, I’m more interested in the politics
around here,” I said, not breaking my gaze from his even when it got to be
unbearable.

“Are you?”  Kantian smiled and straightened the edge of the
paper.  “I know you Istians like a good battle.”

What is he getting at?
I wondered.  The conversation
felt dangerous; I didn’t know how to escape it.

I said, “That’s the rumor.”

“Tomorrow you should have Anuk take you out and show you the
walls.”  I arched a brow, questioning, and he said, “I think things are about
to get interesting here.  Go see the walls, then come back and see me in the
afternoon.  I’ll have something for you to do tomorrow night.”

“Yes sir,” I said, which made him smile again.

“You can go.”

*  *  *  *

“So, what exactly are you supposed to be showing me?” I
asked Anuk as we threaded our way through the wet streets.

“We know there are more people out there stirring for some
change, not just us,” Anuk said.  “Kantian believes that, with the right push,
we could make a real difference in how this city runs, so.”

I frowned, a faint uneasiness muttering in my thoughts. 
“How?” I asked.

I struggled to keep up with his fast, sure stride, and for
the hundredth time I cursed myself for making myself shorter instead of taller. 
These streets felt vaguely familiar to me, and all of a sudden I realized why. 
Anuk stopped in front of a brick wall, where the words
Cursed The Crown
had been carved in angry lines and stained with black.  I shuffled my feet.  If
only Anuk knew that those words had been gouged into the stone in a fit of
irrational anger by a fifteen year old boy…a fifteen year old prince, defying
his boundaries, protesting his own existence.  If only Anuk knew that I had
written them.

“You think this means there are other rebels in the city?” I
asked.

“What else could it mean?”

“I thought—”  I started, but caught myself in time.  The
words were a snatch of dialogue from an old play that every well-educated
person knew…or every well-educated Cavner noble knew:
Cursed the crown that
brought such grief to me, that cast my pride to ruin, and my mind to madness
turned.
 

Shade wouldn’t know those words.  So I cleared my throat and
shrugged, saying, “Maybe someone was bored.”

“Most people don’t cut words into walls unless they’re
really skundered about something.”

“True.”  I kicked at the wall.  “So?  Even if you’re right,
what’s it to do with us?  It could have been anyone.”

“Open your eyes!  Think about it.”  He lounged back on the
wall, his thick shoulders covering
The Crown
.  “We have to reach out to
those folks.  Make it easy for them to find us.”

I shifted, disturbed.  “Since when did you people get to be
dissidents?”

“What, are we supposed to just sit back and get kicked?  No
thanks.  Things’ll get worse before they ever get better.  We gotta make them
better, so.  This is the only way.”

I turned away, hands in my pockets, and strolled back down
the alley.  After a minute Anuk came jogging after me, punching me in the ribs
as he caught up to me.

“What eats?”

“I didn’t sign up to start a rebellion.”

“Get your head out of the stars, Shade.  What did you sign
up for?”

I grinned at him, feeling as cold and feral as I knew that
smile looked.  “I didn’t sign up for anything that doesn’t get me closer to my
target.”

“I’d hate to be that fellow,” he said.

I ignored him, the way I’d learned made more of an
impression on the kids than any kind of response.

After we’d walked a while in silence, I turned to Anuk and
asked, “So, what’s your plan for reaching these folks?”

“I want to get one of the mages to help.  Scorch can do it. 
Burn a symbol in the wall anywhere we see those words.  Rivano’s symbol.”

That brought me up.  I almost stopped, but forced myself to
keep walking.  “There’s more than just that one?”

“I’ve found eight.  Bugs says he found ten, but I’m not sure
he can count so good, so.”

A prickle of shame warmed my cheeks.  I was an idiot.  At
fifteen, I’d never imagined that my angry carvings would spawn echoes across
the city.  That my childish rage would fuel so much discontent.

“Scorch is a Flint?” I asked after a bit, somehow
remembering how Griff had talked about the Jixy who could light a fire with his
fingers.