Having paid her grains to cross, and a little extra to cover her false name, she lingered toward the back of the ferry to separate herself from the rest of the passengers. The deck was crowded with a fresh crew coming in for the late-morning shift change, cups of bright-eye berry tea clutched in their hands. If she were lucky, they would think her aloof and leave her to herself.
She soon realized she needn’t have worried. They were all too busy with the local rumor mill to pay her any mind. Keeping her eyes on the sands below as the ferry sidled into empty space, she attempted to eavesdrop.
“Buncha’ blue coats swarming around the place. Something’s got Galtro spooked.”
“He’d be an idiot if he weren’t spooked. Pits, man, he’s put his hat in against Thratia. You know what they called her in Valathea?”
“Oh yeah, Commodore Throatslitter.”
“Exactly! Why, I bet the old warden’s death wasn’t even done by a doppel. Or if it was, it was one working for the commodore. If Galtro wins I give him a week until he’s filling in the dirt beside Faud.”
“He’s got the watch captain backing him though.”
“And you think Faud didn’t?”
So, Galtro had watchers hanging around. She drummed her fingers on the ferry’s handrail, watching Aransa dwindle behind them. Thratia’s compound hunkered along three levels, a blighted stain upon the face of the city.
Behind her, the miners’ conversation turned to the unruly working conditions they faced ahead. The pipe joints were rusted, the sel senders little trained, and the capture sacks had to be patched at a continual clip. One of the lines was clogged with an invasive insect colony. All the same complaints she’d had when she had worked the line. All the same complaints her son had brought home. Their time-worn grievances brought her a sliver of comfort, a traitorous smile twitching up the corners of her lips. The mines never changed.
“Who’s that?”
Pelkaia flinched, ducking her head to deepen the shadow of her hat’s brim across her eyes. She breathed deep to still her nerves, summoned in her mind the bitter taste of her spiked succulent liqueur.
“Hey, you.” One of the miners, his face young enough to twist Pelkaia’s heart, dropped a rough hand on her shoulder and dipped his head down to peer beneath her hat. “Never seen you round before.”
The others shifted close, wary of the balance of the ferry on its guy lines, but unable to resist a little conspiracy. Pelkaia forced herself to stand straight, to trust in the guise she had wrought to carry her through. She cleared her throat and thrust her voice low.
“I’m in from Hond Steading. Going over to get my assignment,” she said.
“Phew, a Hond-man.” The miner whistled low. “They let you out of that city? Thought they were hurting for the help, what with… how many is it? Four? Five firemounts to mine?”
Pelkaia shrugged, mustered a sideways grin. “They ask you to leave when the mine master’s lady takes a shine to you. But if you’re looking for a transfer, I heard they just got an opening…”
The miner whooped a laugh, his fellows joining in. He thumped her hard enough on the shoulder that she felt the warm spread of a bruise begin beneath the surface. She hoped the bruise didn’t bite into her bone, otherwise she’d be paying for that friendly tap for a full moonturn.
The worn ferry shuddered to a stop at the receiving dock, and she almost gasped with relief as the others gave her friendly directions to the Hub and took off to see to their own tasks. She lingered, letting the miners trudge ahead. No one else paid her any mind, because no one in the whole of Aransa was fool enough to come out here unless they had business.
Once the miners were out of sight on the long trek up the side of the Smokestack, she started down the winding path to the Hub. The operations station clung to the side of the firemount, great pipelines reaching up to its conical mouth. It reminded her of a brown spider with its legs curled in – swatted and dying.
Pelkaia paused in the shadow of a great boulder, getting an eye on the lines pouring into the Hub’s central containment chamber. All the lines leading down from the boreholes in the plug of the firemount’s mouth converged here, depositing their precious cargo for storage. The metal pipe-mouths were battered and rusted, strapped down with leather ties and fraying rope. It was a mess, but it worked. Galtro would forgo food before he’d risk losing a single drop.
She stopped cold as she rounded the path toward the Hub’s doors, nearly stumbled as she found the courtyard outside the Hub empty. No one lingered nearby, telling stories under the glare of the sun or checking on their schedules. Something had gone terribly wrong.
Pelkaia’s skin prickled with anxiety, and she spared a glance for those few men who had made the crossing with her. They were oblivious to the wrongness of their workstation, already tromping up the side of the Smokestack to relieve those that worked their lines before them. Chewing her lip, Pelkaia crept forward, straining her ears and eyes in a desperate attempt to see and hear beyond the vacuous silence which surrounded her. The doorway hung open, the gentle creak of its rusty hinges in the breeze the only sound to greet her.
She eased herself into the quiet and the dark, stunned that the lanterns had been snuffed. She’d been to the Hub many times before as a line worker, and never once had it been without light. Her breath came too hot, her fingers felt frozen. Before she had gone two steps, her toes stubbed against a warm, malleable mass.
Suppressing a shudder, she slipped into a crouch and squinted down at the face of the corpse. It was a woman, she knew not who, with her sword only half out. She wore blue from head to toe, and even in the dim light Pelkaia could follow the lines of her crisp uniform.
Expecting nothing at all, Pelkaia laid her fingers against the woman’s throat. Her heart was silent. The handle of the blade was caught in the iron grip of death, so Pelkaia helped herself to the cudgel hung on the dead woman’s belt instead. She hefted the deadly weight, squinting until her eyes adjusted to the dark. She had waited long enough. Nothing could delay her task.
Whatever awaited in the dark, she was coming for it.
Chapter 19
Scrubbed clean as a man could get in the desert, Detan tugged Tibs’s hat down firm on his head and looked at himself in the mirror. It’d been a long time since he’d run a maneuver like this, and every fiber of his being was screaming at him to cut his losses and scramble.
But there was Tibs at his side, and the doppel’s threat hung over him like a noxious cloud.
He could still see her, if he closed his eyes. Wearing Ripka’s coat and Tibs’s face. It’d be no trouble at all for her to frame him for some horrible deed. Detan was beginning to suspect that she’d enjoy doing such a thing.
They could run, sure. They could cut straight out and make for the north, or even north and east to shelter with his aunt until this all blew over. But a doppel was an unpredictable creature, and Detan had no doubt at all that if he bailed on her she’d tail them until she could assure their destruction. That woman was angry. The fierceness of her tone still haunted him.
She’d lost someone. Detan had no doubt of that. This woman, so long living a peaceable life in the sheltering rock of Aransa, had not suddenly decided to bring her talent to bear against the entire city on a whim. Grief. Grief was the most persuasive of motivators.
No, they couldn’t run. She’d chase them down just for the joy of spreading her pain around. He had to see this to the end, and he was increasingly running out of viable options. Time to bite the air-serpent’s tail. To stick his neck out.