“You organized the assault on the Iskari treasure fleet. You were the Craftsman who negotiated the Iskari defense contract, and you knew that it was the best weapon for your purposes. Your mercenaries attacked, and the Iskari drew on Kos’s power to defend themselves, not knowing that Kos was already drained by his secret dealings. Kos couldn’t stand the strain, and died. At your hand.”
No flush of outrage came to Alexander Denovo’s face. “Why, in this fantasy of yours, did I need Gustave to kill Cabot?”
“You wanted that Concern,” she replied, cocking her head back in the direction of the rotating sphere. “Kos had more power than all your minions put together. You could feast for years on his corpse. But you couldn’t get the Concern from Cabot by force, and if he died without passing it on, it would dissipate, no use to you or anyone.
“You could, however, force Cabot to give the Concern to someone weaker. You taught Gustave a way to kill the Judge without being detected, which also left his victim alive long enough to pass the Concern to someone else. You expected Cabot would give it to his butler, but the butler didn’t find him first. Shale did, and he escaped. You must have been furious when you learned that bad timing had wrecked your plan. But the situation could still be salvaged. Shale, you reasoned, did not know what he carried. Cabot, by the time Shale found him, had no tongue, no throat, and was barely sane; he could not have explained the situation to a Guardian ignorant of Craft. Nor would Shale’s people flee Alt Coulumb after Cabot’s murder: they had staked too much on their deal with Kos to be so easily stymied. The Blacksuits would find Shale and his Flight eventually, and you would trick Justice into letting you claim the Concern, as you almost did a few minutes ago.”
“What proof do you have?” Denovo said archly. “If you lack documentary evidence, at least call witnesses like a civilized person. Say, those mercenaries you claim I hired.”
“You took their memories after the job was complete.”
“Impossible.”
“Not for the greatest Craftsman mentalist in the history of the Hidden Schools. You tried to wipe Captain Pelham’s mind last night. You were hasty, obvious; you must have been terrified when you realized Ms. Kevarian had hired him to escort us to Alt Coulumb. You had to destroy him before he let something slip that would implicate you.”
“I’ve been in the Skeld Archipelago all week. I only arrived this morning, on the ferry. Unless you think I could accomplish such delicate work from halfway around the world.”
“You were in Alt Coulumb last night, not Skeld.”
“A ferrymaster, and a hundred twenty passengers, will corroborate my story. Every one saw me arrive this morning.”
“Where were you before the ferry?”
“My hotel in Skeld. Really, Tara, I don’t understand the point you’re trying to make.”
“You weren’t in Skeld yesterday evening. You were in Alt Coulumb. This morning you flew out and circled back around.”
“The city is a no-fly zone.”
“You could get around that.”
“Circumvent a divine interdict? Perhaps you can tell me how to manage such a miracle.”
“Simple. All you need is something built to be stronger than gods.” Tara took another step back. She was not afraid, but if she was right—and she was right—she wanted space between herself and the Professor.
She was new to Alt Coulumb, but in the last two days she had stood upon its rooftops and crouched in its basements, visited its sick and swam in its oceans. She had walked the mind of its god and traced the paths of his wounds. In two days, she had not once seen the city’s sky bare of clouds, yet never had its air seemed humid, nor had the clouds threatened to break into storm. Alt Coulumb was usually clear in the autumn, Cat had said, because of the trade winds.
Weather was difficult to control, subject to the earth’s shifting in its orbit and to the whims of the moon. Craftsmen and Craftswomen tampered with rain and cloud only in extremity. But more than a hundred years ago, the builders of the first sky-cities had learned that floating buildings were difficult to defend, and easy to conceal.
The skin beneath the cleft of Tara’s collarbone bore a tiny blue circle, the first glyph she had ever received: the Glyph of Acceptance that marked her as a student of the Hidden Schools, entitled to take refuge there in times of need. That privilege had not been revoked at her graduation. Even a prodigal daughter might one day return home.
Tara pressed the tattoo, and it glowed. A tiny gap appeared in the cloud cover beyond the broken skylight, dilating rapidly as a cat’s pupil in darkness. An electric chill passed through her.
Starlight shone through the gap in the clouds. Far above, trapped between earth and heaven, hung the crystal towers and gothic arches and double-helix staircases of the Hidden Schools. Walkways of silver ribbon stretched from building to building, and scholars paced on the balconies. Atop one crenellated dormitory, a corpse-fire glowed, students no doubt clustered about it, drinking and telling stories and maybe making love.
No shimmering staircase of starlight descended from Elder Hall, no rainbow bridge to bear her home. The schools’ Craft of Ingress fought Kos’s interdict as machines fight, deadlocked in absolute certainty. The schools themselves were mightier than the interdict, but the Craft of Ingress had been designed to admit eager young scholars, not extract Craftswomen from the heart of a god’s own territory.
Fortunately, Tara did not want to leave Alt Coulumb. The parting of the clouds was enough for her purposes. She inhaled shadow and starfire. Night adhered to her skin and flowed into her mind.
“You brought the schools here,” she said, “and used their camouflage to obscure the stars and moon, weakening the Guardians and Craftswomen set against you. It was the schools’ broader no-fly zone, not Alt Coulumb’s, which interrupted Ms. Kevarian’s flight yesterday and almost killed us both.
“The schools gave you an excellent alibi. It may be impossible to wipe a man’s mind from a hundred miles away, but a thousand feet of altitude is no obstacle for a master like you. The Hidden Schools are broader than that from end to end, and you wove your commands through my classmates’ minds and mine with no trouble.”
Denovo’s stern expression yielded to a childlike smile. “Tara.” He stuck his hands in his pockets. “You amaze me.”
“You killed Kos Everburning, Professor.”
“What do you expect to accomplish with this posturing? If you want a fight, strike me and get it over with.”
“Justice is watching,” she said.
“Justice is blind. I blinded her myself, twenty years before you were born.” He removed one hand from his pocket and examined the blunt tips of his fingers. “If you hope these automata will descend on me like a parliament of rooks on a bad storyteller”—he gestured to the motionless Blacksuits—“you’ve forgotten the first law of design. Never make anything that can be used to hurt you. They’ll remain where they stand until I finish my business.”
For the first time since Cardinal Gustave burst in the skylight, Tara truly looked at the Blacksuits. They did not twitch from their immobile rows. “You’ve done horrible things.”
“Not as horrible as you, or your boss.” He shook his head, tone still conversational. “You deserted our side long ago, as did a great many Craftsmen. You settled for a pleasant illusion, the facile lie that we could have peace with gods. You gave up on the dream.”
“You’re one of the most powerful Craftsmen in the world. What more do you want?”
“Well, for starters, I’m not a god yet.”
Tara blinked. “What?”
“You said I wanted Kos’s power. Clever but wrong. Power I have. It’s godhood I want. Immortality and might, free of sickness and decay.”
“Impossible.”