“But Seril was killed in the fifties, in the God Wars.”
“I’m glad to see you know your history. Yes. Seril and her warrior-priests rode off to battle, not caring whether Alt Coulumb followed them. She died at the hands of the King in Red, and left the city without protectors.” Ms. Kevarian took another sip of coffee. “Kos’s Church hired me, and a senior partner from the firm, to do what we could. The Blacksuits were part of the result. I met Captain Pelham on that first trip. He was still human then. As, I suppose, was I.”
They started down the ramp, followed by a pair of deckhands who carried their belongings. Tara looked about, hoping to catch a glimpse of Raz, but he had ensconced himself belowdecks. The sun was far above the horizon, and he needed his rest. Two captains, two crews, one for the night watch, one for the day—no wonder the Kell’s Bounty flourished in such a cutthroat business, despite being one of the smaller ships currently moored at Alt Coulumb’s docks.
How cutthroat was their business, after all? Tara had asked some of the sailors about Captain Pelham’s “spot of trouble,” but they evaded her questions, and when pressed they paled and drew away. Captain Davis had been no more communicative.
A driverless carriage waited at the bottom of the ramp, drawn by a black monster of a horse so huge that Tara could not imagine anyone daring to fit it to harness. It pawed the ground and fixed her with an intelligent and malicious eye.
She quickened her step and followed Ms. Kevarian into the darkness of the carriage, where they sat amid black leather and velvet curtains as their few pieces of luggage were loaded after them. When Tara closed the door, the coach rolled forward as though the crowd were vapor.
Ms. Kevarian set her mug down, steepled her fingers, and said nothing for some time.
“I’m sorry I called you a witch,” Tara said.
It took a moment for Ms. Kevarian to notice she had spoken. Even then, she did not respond.
“Boss?”
“Ms. Abernathy. I’ve wrestled with gods and demons. My ego is hardly so fragile as to be bruised by an associate’s poor choice of words. I’m thinking.”
Associate. Pride bloomed inside Tara. “Just thinking?”
“There’s never any ‘just’ about thinking, Ms. Abernathy.”
The bloom shriveled. No matter. Pride was dangerous, anyway. “What are you thinking about?”
“Strategy. We have a daunting case before us, and it has grown more complex in the last two hours.”
“You’re talking about our crash.”
“My Craft does not fail without reason. Something struck us in the air, overpowering as a god’s flight interdict, and swift enough to shred my Craft without warning. Had either of us been slow to respond, we might never have made it to shore. We were meant to die, I think, and our deaths to look like an accident. Pilot error.”
“What do we do?” Tara summoned a fragment of lightning and set it dancing between her fingertips. “Find the person who’s gunning for us?”
“Unfortunately, no. Pleasant as it would be to hunt our assailant down, I have business to attend to. And,” she said as their carriage took a sharp turn onto a side thoroughfare, “so do you.”
*
Thirty minutes later Tara stood on a cobblestone sidewalk before the double doors of a huge building. She didn’t have much experience with skyscrapers, but this one was rich by any standard, decorated with marble and gold leaf. Gargoyles glowered from its ornately adorned façade.
Deep, old grooves marred the stonework in angular patterns, like rune writing but unfamiliar to Tara. They didn’t fit the skyscraper’s stark, elegant decor, and she wondered why they had not been patched or repaired.
The brass-flashed double doors swung open when she approached, as Ms. Kevarian had told her they would. The doors were simple constructs. They checked for power, and yielded to it. Before the end of the God Wars, it was rare for a citizen of Alt Coulumb to possess much Craft. This building hadn’t changed its locks since. Quaint.
Tara advanced over the floor’s marble tiles, her gaze fixed upon the lifts at the far end of the hallway. The walls were lined with mirrors, the building’s second line of defense. If she caught her own eye in the glass, she would stand entranced by her reflection until security arrived. If she looked into the mirrors but not at herself, she might simply wander through their surface and never be seen again in the real world, unless the building sent someone to fetch her back.
She reached the lift without incident, stepped inside, turned the dial to the forty-seventh floor, and pressed the GO button. The doors rolled closed, leaving her trapped in a shining brass box. With a lurch, the entire assembly began to rise.
She schooled herself for her encounter with Judge Cabot. This would be her first professional meeting as a full-fledged Craftswoman, and her chance to make a good impression in Alt Coulumb. She ignored the nervous tremor in her chest. “Your Honor,” she said to the walls of the empty lift. Good. Lead off strong and with respect. “Elayne Kevarian of the firm Kelethras, Albrecht, and—” No. Not quite. Don’t be too arrogant, Ms. Kevarian had said. Step in, pay your respects. Be direct and businesslike. “Elayne Kevarian sent me to tell you she has agreed to represent the Clergy of Kos Everburning, and wishes to speak with you at your convenience.”
She wondered who this Judge was, and how well Ms. Kevarian knew him. A city the size of Alt Coulumb had many lesser Judges, the better to help Craftsmen coordinate the reanimation of people, animals, and great Concerns, but this case … This case was beyond any Craft Tara had ever expected to touch.
The thought made her heart race with excitement.
The engine driving this lift ran on steam pressure, steam produced from water by heat. Alt Coulumb’s generators derived that heat not from felled trees or the black magic oils of the ancient dead, but from the grace of a god who, ages ago, took the people of this twist of coastline as his own.
If Ms. Kevarian was to be believed, that god was dead. His gifts of fire and heat would persist until the dark of the moon, when debts resolve and prices fall due. Then, they would fade. Tara stood in a metal box dangling by a thin cord over a thirty-story drop, and the other end of that cord was held by the promise of a ghost.
Had Tara not known better, she would have been unnerved.
The lift rocked to a halt, and its doors rolled open.
Three Blacksuits stood in the ornate lobby on the gold-thread Skeldic rug: two male, one female. Light shone through the crystal ceiling off their molten obsidian skin. Tara checked an indrawn breath when she saw them. Justice’s minions. That was what Ms. Kevarian had called them, back at the dock.
She told herself to relax. She had done nothing wrong.
Of course, in her experience, this rarely meant one had nothing to fear from the authorities. Forcing a fog of bad memories aside, she stepped into the lobby, chin high and hands clasped primly before her. She had changed on the Kell’s Bounty from her bedraggled sea-soaked clothes into her second, and far more formal suit, an executioner’s black against her nut-brown skin. She was glad of the suit’s severity as three blank reflective faces confronted her. She returned their stare.
“I want to speak with Judge Cabot.”
Judge Cabot is not available. The figures’ lips did not move, but Tara heard three voices nevertheless, or the nightmare echoes of three voices, not-quite-sounds on the edge of hearing. What business did you have with him?
“I…” Dammit, she would not be quelled by a trio of professional security nightmares. Steel yourself, woman, and get on with it. You’re not a farm girl come to beg for favors. You have a purpose here. “I’m a Craftswoman from the firm Kelethras, Albrecht, and Ao, here to speak with Judge Cabot. Do you know when he will return?”