The Madness Project (The Madness Method) (57 page)

“Thanks.”

We paused at a cross street, watching a plain black carriage
roll past.  The horses’ coats steamed, the faint wind bringing us the smell of
wet leather and sweat, the ringing of metal shoes on cobblestones, the murmur
of the coachman’s voice as he steadied the beasts. 

“Newshawks,” Shade muttered.

“How can you tell?” I asked.

He startled, just barely, and shot me a quick glance. 
“Guessing, really.  Don’t those boxes on the back look like their cameras?”

I frowned.  The only thing I knew about cameras were that
they miraculously made the photographs show up in the Herald every day.  I’d
never seen one myself.  They were so spanking new, even here in Cavnal, that it
surprised me Shade would be so quick to recognize one.  I couldn’t imagine they
were more popular in Istia, which everyone said hadn’t quite caught up with the
latest science. 

Another carriage rattled past close behind the first.  A man
inside pulled back the black velvet curtain from the door as they passed by,
pressing his pale forehead to the glass.  I wanted to turn my head and wander
away, because of the way the lot of us stood there looking angry and ready for
mischief, but Shade just straightened up and stood still as could be, staring
right at the man as if he was the one who didn’t belong.

A minute and the curtain fell back into place.  I peeked a
glance at Shade.  His face was hard and cold as marble, and even his eyes
seemed cut from stone.

“Shade?” I whispered.  “D’you know that bloke or something?”

“No.”  He beckoned to the lads and strode off across the
street.  “I just didn’t like how he was looking at us.”

“Get used to it,” I muttered.  “That’s how they all look at
us.”

We reached the third street and turned right.  This far east
the buildings were all low and old-fashioned brick affairs, with wide windows
and ivy and a smell of peat fires about them.  I’d always thought they looked
like they belonged in a country village, not the royal city.  An old woman
standing outside her front door got one goggle at us and hurried inside, only
to peer out at us from behind her half-closed door.  A man who might have been
her husband came out from behind the house with a bucket of water.  I stared at
him longer than I should have, because there on his face I saw a tattoo, brown
swirls like a mustache rimming his lips. 

Shade glanced over and caught his gaze, and for half a
moment the two of them just studied each other.  Then Shade held up his left
hand, making a V with his thumb and pointer finger—the sign of Wake, patron of
mages, an outlawed gesture.  The man started.  A slow smile spread over his
face, and he mirrored the gesture with his right hand.

The woman grabbed at his arm and hauled him inside, but not
so fast that I didn’t see he was still grinning like a cat.

“What was that all about?” Jig asked, running a few steps to
catch us up.

“Spreading the word,” Shade said.

He gave me a mad kind of smile and picked up his pace,
tracing his way through the patchy bits of ice that turned the streets beastly
treacherous.  We didn’t have far to walk before we could see the massive blast
furnaces of the steel mill towering over the buildings.  Black smoke coiled up
from them, stinking with a sour, acid kind of smell.

Shade slipped into the shadows of the shop across the street
from it, waving us back beside him.

“We’ve got coppers,” he said after a moment.  “No surprise there.”

I poked my head past him.  The mill was enormous, the lower
halves of the buildings all brick and ivy and soot-streaked glass, with a crown
of iron structures laid on top like an afterthought.  I’d never imagined how
many buildings would make up the mill, but at least it was fairly easy to tell
where we needed to go, by the crowd gathered in front. 

After watching a minute I picked out the newshawks with big
bulky devices in their arms, shouting at each other over the excited talk of
the other folks who had come.  The surly man who had glared at us from the
carriage stood near the front of the crowd, arms crossed like he didn’t want to
be there, and all around him were fine ladies in furs and grand hats,
chattering like squirrels.  A small swarm of coppers milled about the crowd.  I
recognized one of them, the police sergeant with his ridiculous helmet who had
marched Prince Tarik off the night of his birthday.

“Oy, him,” I muttered.

“Who?” Shade asked.

“The sergeant.  I’ve seen him before.”

Shade didn’t say aught at first, just watched the sergeant
and the other constables.  Then he said, “Should I be worried about him?”

“Dan’ think so.”

“There’s an awful lot of coppers, don’t you think?” Anuk
asked.

“There’s an awful lot of people,” Shade said, frowning a
bit.  “Wonder what’s going on.”

We all crouched in silence for a tick, watching some
scraggly-looking folks in greasy grubs congregating near the crowd of
fancy-hatted spectators.  The coppers seemed to be trying to keep the two
groups apart, but far as I could tell, the workers just wanted to stand there
and get a goggle of the new tram, too.

A carriage rolled up and some important looking Minister
stepped down, all done up in his official sash and ribbons.  He was a puffy
looking fellow, with blotchy skin and eyes that were owlish-wide behind his
thick spectacles.  A small, wraith-thin boy climbed down after him, who I
supposed was his son, and the two of them marched off toward another pair of
Ministers in the thick of the crowd.

“Do you think anyone really important will come?” I asked.

“Like who?” Coins asked.

Jig smirked at me.  “Like the Prince?”

“Oy, shut up,” I snapped.

Shade shot me an odd kind of glance but didn’t turn away
from his post.  “Doubt it,” he said after a minute.  “He’s probably too busy
playing polo to care about things like this.”

I scowled but didn’t reply.  He was probably right.

A minute and I fidgeted, my legs cramping up under me, but
no one else seemed too keen on moving.  Shade watched the crowd and we all
watched Shade, wondering what he’d got so fixated on.

“Shade?  When do we move?” Jig asked.

“Something else is going on.  Not sure what.”  He turned to
me.  “Think you can get close and find out what those folks are doing here?”

“Me,” I said.

He smiled and said, “Yeah.”  His fingers flicked at the
lads.  “Those two are fighters, and Coins doesn’t like talking to people.”

We all laughed.

“A’right,” I said, excitement prickling down my arms.  “Hang
on a tick.”

I slipped out onto the street and ambled toward the crowd,
slow and bored as could be.  The knot of workers had turned into a little mob,
but they just shuffled their feet and watched the coppers and the elites, like
they were waiting for something.  I sidled up beside a kid who might have been
a few years older than me, though I couldn’t quite say with all the grease and
soot on his face.

“What’s gannin’ on?” I asked.

“We’re done,” the lad said, dark eyes flashing. 

“Done with what?”

He jerked his head toward the factory.  “Foreman’s ganna
have to listen to us now.  We’re done till he agrees to do what he promised
five months back.”

“What was that?”

“Raise our pay,” he said.  “Cut our hours.  We’re starving
and exhausted, and he dan’ even care.  We keep losing folks, too.  Old Guff ate
it last week.  And then the mage.  He got so tired he fell in the furnace.”

“You think he fell in?” I asked.

He scuffed his boot toe against the cobbles.  “Not sure. 
But Arne was a good man.  Odd, a bit, but we all liked him.  But that’s just
the thing.  He worked so hard, but still couldn’t finish the job in time if he
had to wait on the furnace.  And if he div’n finish, he’d get fired, so he did
it his own way.  Mite creepy, I’d say, but that’s as it is.  Things are bad. 
No one wants to get fired.”  He gave a rueful laugh.  “Bet he wishes he got
fired, now.  Better than getting…you know…on fire.”

I grimaced.

“Sorry, that came out wrong,” he said.

“So what are you here for?”

He nodded at the factory.  “Just wait till the foreman shows
up.  When he sees all of us here, in front of these fine folks, he’ll have to
listen to us, or he’ll look like the greedy bastard he is.”

“You ganna make a scene?” I asked.

“Nah.  We can’t or the coppers will take us down.  Arrest
us.  Foreman’ll fire us.  Then we’ll get shipped off to the mines and no one’ll
ever see us again, count on it.”

I chewed on my lip.  “Maybe it’s not such a great day for
this.”

“We’ve been planning for weeks!  Ever since they announced
we’d be rolling out the new tram for the high-streeters.”  He turned and
studied me, his thick curly hair hanging in his eyes.  “Why?  What’s it to you
if we strike now or later?”

“No reason.  Just looks like a lot of coppers.  Maybe
they’ve got a bit antsy and won’t like what you’re up to.”

“Nah, they’re swell.  Honest, I’m more worried about me
chums here.  Some of them got pushed a lot harder than me.  They’re sore for
any kind of fix.  Hope they dan’ get overly jumpy when Foreman shows up.”

I nodded.  “Hope so.  Well, good luck.”

“You could stay if you like,” he said, smiling.  “We can
always use another voice.”

“Can’t stay,” I said, borrowing Shade’s line.  “Sorry.  I
would if I could.”

“My name’s Mitra,” he called, as I started to walk away.

I laughed and held up my hand in a wave.  “Hayli,” I said.

“See you later, Hayli.”

Probably not
, I thought, but I smiled as I headed
back to the lads.

Shade had got to crouching against the wall, arms resting on
his knees.  Jig stood beside him like a watchdog, but Anuk and Coins stood a
bit off, chunnering on in their usual nonsense.  When I joined them, Shade didn’t
move, just glanced up at me and waited for me to talk.

“Workers are protesting,” I said.  “Did we pick a bad day?”

“We didn’t pick it,” Shade said, eyes darkening.  “Did
Kantian know about this, I wonder?”

“Don’t matter now, right?” Coins said.  “What should we do
about it?  Go forward?”

Shade wrapped an arm around his knees, worrying his lip with
his thumb.  “We need to get them behind us.”

“Shade, these folks are just mill workers.  Why would they
care about us?” I asked.

He glanced up at me.  “Because they’re already on a quick
trigger.  If they’re already mad enough to get up and protest…”  He got to his
feet suddenly.  “Stay here a minute.  I’ll be back.”

Chapter 12 — Tarik

I strode toward the milling crowd of workers, searching
every corner of my soul for a reason to turn around and walk away.  Inciting a
riot in front of half the Ministers of the Court…I had to be insane.  When I
reached the knot of workers and saw a boxy turn his camera in our direction, my
stomach pitched and it took all my will not to shift aside and hide my face.

My face.

I was just lying to myself if I believed I could separate
myself from Shade anymore.  The realization hit me with a sudden force, turning
my blood cold.  I wanted to protest.  Wanted to walk away and forget all that
I’d done…but how could I?  Maybe the world had seen Shade do these things, but
no matter what face I wore, no matter what name I called myself, I was the one
who had done them. 
Me
.  The things I’d done would haunt my dreams for
years to come, but showing another face to the world would never undo the truth
of who I’d become.  Nothing would ever be able to change that.

Someone tapped my shoulder.  “You’re the second face I dan’ recognize…”
he began, then as I turned toward him he stopped, and dropped a step away from
me.  “Oh. 
Oh
.  You’re a mage.”

“What about it?” I asked.

It was the kid I’d seen Hayli talking to, staring at me with
a fear in his eyes that I hadn’t expected, like I wasn’t quite human.  I
frowned.  The kids at the Hole seemed indifferent to me being a mage, and I
knew how Samyr and Vessa had reacted to me, but…I hadn’t expected this, not
from other low-streeters.

For a moment the kid wouldn’t meet my gaze, but scanned the
crowd around us, chewing his lower lip.  “Look, I dan’ got a problem with it,”
he said.  “But just so you know, it might not be safe for you to be about.  I
overheard Foreman say he’d be happy to send any other mages he meets to the
chill with Arne.”

“He can try,” I said, with a vicious kind of smile.  I nodded
at the other workers.  “You think this will work?”

“Course it will.”

“Of course,” I said, and didn’t meet his gaze.  “The foreman
sounds like a reasonable fellow.”

“Reasonable?  He ain’t reasonable.  Not even close.”

“So…”  I turned to him, then.  “Why do you think he’ll
listen to you?”