Scorazin, Lizanne thought in sour recognition. This vision possessed the same clarity as the first memory, made all the more disconcerting by being an unwelcome reminder of her time within these walls. They looked out on the prison city through a part-shattered window, more roof-tops than she remembered just visible through the familiar haze of smoke fumes. Tinkerer had managed to perfectly capture the signature scent of sulphur, coal and death she had hoped would never again assail her nostrils.
She turned at the sound of a small plaintive cry behind her, seeing a man cradling an infant beside the bleach-faced body of a woman covered by a filthy blanket. Stepping closer, Lizanne confirmed her suspicion that it was Tinkerer’s mother, face even emptier now having been slackened by death.
They sent her here, Tinkerer said, moving to stand by the man with the infant. As he knew they would. Even a pregnant woman can expect no mercy if the crime is treason.
Lizanne looked closer at the crouching man, seeing a stocky, bald-headed fellow in his thirties, his face possessed of the sallow hardness that marked those who spend years within the walls. He stared down at the child in his arms with what appeared to Lizanne to be cold animosity, his face betraying not the slightest twitch as the baby raised a tiny hand to his unshaven cheek. Who is he? she asked.
You met him once before, Tinkerer said. But he was dead by then.
Lizanne recalled the chamber beneath Tinkerer’s quarters in the cinnabar mine, the fourteen corpses that had included the long-dead Artisan. He brought you here, she realised, her mind stumbling over the implications with unaccustomed confusion. How?
The trance, Tinkerer replied. He stepped back as the man got to his feet, moving with the infant to the window.
Lizanne frowned in consternation, this all being so far outside her experience. How could a man compel a non-Blessed soul to such extreme action via the trance? She remembered what Clay shared with her about Silverpin’s revelation when they discovered the White’s lair, about there being more to the trance than just shared memory. Blue is a remarkable product, your kind understands only the barest fraction of its power. Somehow the blade-hand had compelled the rest of the Longrifles to keep searching for the White long after it became obvious the most rational course would be to return to Carvenport. Also, she had been able to bind Clay somehow, forcing him to confront the sleeping White. But they had both been Blood-blessed whereas Tinkerer’s mother couldn’t have been.
He had the blessing, Lizanne said, nodding to the man who now stood cradling the infant as he stared out at the prison city. As do you. But your mother didn’t. The blessing is not hereditary.
What is the mind if not a means of controlling the body? Tinkerer said. To share a mind is to share control, or surrender it to a greater will. He had been searching for me for a long time, or one like me. Sending his mind out far and wide until he snared a Blood-blessed infant still nestling in its mother’s womb. The mind of an unborn child is blank, easily claimed, and through it, so is the mother. Later, he saw fit to share the memory of the act that had brought her here, the crime he had forced her to commit. I believe he hoped it would distress me. Instead I found it fascinating.
The man at the window spoke then, his voice low and croaking, the rasp of a guilty soul. “You poor little fucker,” he said as the child squirmed in his arms. “If I was any kind of a man I’d strangle you right now.”
The memory shifted again, swirling into another darker space. His home in the mine, Lizanne realised, looking around at the rough-hewn rock. Tinkerer was at least ten years old by now, though his slightness of frame may have made him seem younger. He sat on a stool next to a bed, holding a cup of water to the lips of a barely conscious older girl. Though apparently in her mid-teens the girl was so tall her bare, soot-covered feet protruded off the edge of the bed.
“Can’t stay,” a raspy voice said and Lizanne turned to see the man from the previous memory standing unsteadily in the chamber entrance. His countenance had become even more sallow and sunken in the intervening years and his eyes were dark reddish holes in his face. A half-empty bottle dangled from his hand and Lizanne could smell the acrid stain of whatever concoction it contained on the man’s breath. “Can’t have her here,” the man went on, voice loud and slurred as he waved the bottle about. “Shouldn’t’ve brought her.”
The young Tinkerer barely glanced at the man, continuing to hold the cup to the girl’s lips and speaking in a flat voice he would carry into adulthood. “I expected you to have expired by morning. Your organs must be close to failing by now.”
The man responded with a snarl which sounded somewhat half-hearted to Lizanne, as if he had long exhausted all anger for the boy he had condemned to this place. “Always the fuckin’ same,” he growled. “Ever since you were old enough to speak. There’s no soul in you, boy.” He took a long drink from the bottle, his throat working with greedy, desperate gulps that told Lizanne this was a man engaged in a protracted suicide attempt. “We’ll sell her to that bitch who took over the Miner’s Repose,” he added upon draining the bottle. “Once she’s healed up, and all.”
“No,” Tinkerer said, setting the cup aside. “You will be dead soon, and I require assistance.”
The girl on the bed groaned and shifted a little, Lizanne noting the marks of a recent and severe beating on her face. Despite the discolouration and the swelling, it was still possible to recognise Melina’s high cheek-bones and strong nose, although at this point she evidently retained possession of both eyes. Lizanne had liked her, as much as it had been possible to like any inmate of Scorazin. Melina, although brutalised by her years within the walls, had at least possessed a straightforward fairness and lack of duplicity that set her apart. Lizanne found she couldn’t suppress a twinge of guilt at the woman’s eventual fate, shot in the head during the first chaotic charge into the wreckage of the citadel, itself a spectacular distraction Lizanne had orchestrated to facilitate her own escape.
Your regret is misplaced, the older Tinkerer told her. She would certainly have killed you had she survived. Forgiveness was not a trait she possessed.
As interesting as this all is, Lizanne replied, you have yet to show me what became of the Artisan.
He became him. Tinkerer nodded at the sallow-faced drunkard, now glowering at the boy in impotent rage. In time, so did I.
Another shift in the vision, the setting switching to a much darker place. The young Tinkerer had sprouted several inches in height in the interval. He crouched at the drunkard’s side, holding up his ingenious lantern so the focused beam could fully illuminate the man’s face. The drunkard had lost much of his body-weight by now, his features gaunt and skin resembling old yellowed paper in the lamplight. It was clear to Lizanne he had only a small amount of life left to him. His eyes were half-closed and his lips moved in a faint murmur. The young Tinkerer leaned closer to catch the sibilant rasp, “You’re the last, y’know that?”
“The last of what?” the youth enquired, a rare frown of puzzlement on his brow.
“These . . .” The dying man’s hands jerked and Tinkerer turned the lamp to illuminate the bodies, thirteen in all and soon to be joined by one more. “All of these . . . lived wretched lives trapped in this place . . . just to bring you here.” He managed to lift a shaking hand and extend a finger, Tinkerer’s lamp following it to reveal the oldest corpse, the one chained to the wall. “That one . . . began it all. Fucker!” The man coughed out the insult and began to jerk spasmodically, breath catching. “Started it . . . Called the first one, found her in the womb . . . just like I found you.”