“Sadly,” Lizanne replied with a sigh, making for the ward-room door and sparing a glance at Thriftmor now busily refreshing his brandy glass, “it’s not quite that easy.”
“You promised security,” Tinkerer said in his usual colourless voice. He glanced around at the spartan cabin he had been given and Lizanne wondered if he was pining for his books and diagrams. “This isn’t it.”
“I promised escape from Scorazin,” Lizanne returned. “And I delivered. My end of the bargain is fulfilled.” She held out a vial of Blue. “Now it’s time for yours, sir.”
“Bargains can be renegotiated,” he said, making no move to take the vial. “Especially when the value of the item under negotiation has increased . . .”
He fell to an abrupt silence as Lizanne took a revolver from the pocket of her skirt and levelled it at his head. The cylinder clicked as she cocked the hammer. “I am in no mood for your particular manners, sir,” she informed him in slow, unmistakable tones. “Up until this point have I given you any reason to doubt my word?”
His face remained impassive as he replied with a fractional shake of his head.
“Good. Then trust me when I say that you will either surrender your secrets now or I will decorate this cabin with your brains.” She held out the vial once more. “As I say, I am in no mood.”
He lifted one of his deft, slim-fingered hands and plucked the vial from her grasp. “One trance won’t be enough,” he cautioned her, removing the stopper and drinking half the contents. “The amount of information is considerable and complex.”
“Then it’s all the more important that we make a start,” Lizanne replied, retrieving the vial and drinking the remaining product. She lowered the revolver and they matched stares. For several seconds nothing happened, the expected trance failing to materialise. It occurred to her that Tinkerer’s singular personality might prohibit any trance connection, it required some form of emotional bond after all, however slight. But she recalled that he had made at least one friend in Scorazin, although even the unfortunately deceased Melina felt obliged to punch him in the face at one point.
“Perhaps a stronger dose,” she began, reaching for her wallet, but then Tinkerer blinked and the cabin disappeared.
The vision that greeted Lizanne was amazingly detailed, possessing a clarity and exactitude she had never before seen in a Blue-trance. Even the most vivid memory was inevitably altered by the mind that recalled it, insignificant elements rendered vague or omitted completely. For Tinkerer, however, it appeared nothing was insignificant. Every cobble of the street beneath their feet caught the dim sunlight peeking through the slowly drifting grey clouds above. Every brick, timber and pane of glass that formed the surrounding houses was fully present as was the tinge of horse-dung that combined with wood-smoke and a faint tang of salt to stain the air.
A port, Lizanne decided, trying vainly to conceal the sense of wonder that leeched from her mind as she surveyed her new surroundings. She spied a tall tower poking above the roof-tops to the south, a spire that closely resembled the oracular temple in the Morsvale park where she had hidden with Tekela and Major Arberus. Thoughts of Tekela immediately quelled her amazement. We have a task, she reminded herself, turning to Tinkerer who stood a few feet away, expression as blank as ever.
Where is this? she asked him.
Valazin, he replied. I was conceived here.
She had never been to this city but knew Valazin to be the largest port on the Corvantine Empire’s north-eastern coast. Once an independent city-state it had been incorporated into the Empire some six centuries ago. She remembered from her many briefings on Corvantine politics that the port had been the scene of some of the worst outrages of the Revolutionary Wars. The inhabitants had unwisely taken advantage of the chaos to resurrect archaic notions of reclaiming long-lost sovereignty. A series of brief battles and prolonged massacres, undertaken by the three now-extinct legions of the Household Division, had put paid to any such illusions. Judging by the fact that many of the houses in sight were of recent construction, and the numerous Imperial posters pasted onto the walls, she deduced they were viewing Valazin some years after its subjugation.
Tinkerer strode across the street and halted before a shop-window decorated with the words “Eskovin Toys & Trinkets—Finest Toymakers in Valazin Since 1209.” Lizanne moved to his side, peering through the glass at the interior where a diminutive figure could be seen at a work-bench. Peering closer, she saw that it was a woman, perhaps twenty years old, engaged in wrapping a small wooden box with brown paper. Lizanne took note of the woman’s bulging belly. Your mother.
Yes. This was my family’s shop. Grandfather taught Mother how to make the toys and Father took the shop over when he died.
If she had expected to see some flicker of affection as he gazed upon his mother she was to be disappointed. His face retained its usual impassivity as the woman finished wrapping the box, tying the covering in place with a length of string and a small knot. The woman placed the box under her arm and exited the shop, the bell above the door jingling as she stepped out onto the cobbles. Lizanne was struck by the resemblance to Tinkerer, her pale features a feminized mirror of the man standing next to her, and similarly vacant of expression. The emptiness to the woman’s gaze told of a failure to fully perceive the world, as if she were drugged. As the door swung closed Lizanne caught sight of a man’s body lying face-down next to the work-bench, a recent and broad patch of blood spreading across the tiled floor.
Father tried to stop her, Tinkerer explained. She stabbed him in the chest with a screwdriver.
She and Tinkerer followed the woman on a southward trek through winding streets and alleys. She moved with an automatic precision, turning this way and that without pause as if locked into a pre-set course. Eventually she emerged from a narrow walkway onto the broad wharf of the Valazin dockside. She side-stepped the many carts and barrows with unconscious ease, making for a large three-storey building Lizanne recognised as the port’s Custom House. Tinkerer’s mother walked up to the uniformed guard on the door and presented the box, Lizanne catching her soft precise tones as she said, “I was told to give you this.”
The guard’s face broke into a puzzled smile as he bent to accept the box. The expression abruptly turned to consternation when the woman turned on her heel and walked briskly away. The guard had time for a half-shouted command to stop before the box exploded. Lizanne was impressed by the woman’s skills, somehow managing to cram so powerful a device into such a small container. When the smoke cleared there was little left of the guard save a red smear surrounding the ruined Custom House door. Tinkerer’s mother stood a short distance from the carnage, hands folded over her fulsome belly and an oddly satisfied smile on her lips. When a squad of constables descended on her a few moments later she said, “Free Valazin, death to the Empire” with all the conviction of a child reciting a poorly remembered rhyme.
Why? Lizanne asked as the memory faded into a grey mist. She hardly seemed the radical type.
She was told to, Tinkerer answered as the surrounding mist formed into a more familiar scene.