“Nothing for me, thanks.”
Kopil emerged from the kitchenette. He snapped his fingers twice and two cubes of ice fell into his tequila.
“You don’t live here,” Caleb said. As he watched, the duvet straightened, books floated to the shelves of their own accord, and piles of scrolls snapped to order. “You have a mansion at Worldsedge. I’ve seen pictures.”
“I have a mansion at Worldsedge,” Kopil acknowledged. “And one in the Skeld Reaches, and a penthouse in Alt Coulumb, and three extensive estates on this coast alone. Plus the occasional island. But do you have any idea how long it takes to commute from Worldsedge? Even flying, I’d waste an hour every day, and I have no interest in spending all morning lurching through a crowded sky. Not to mention the expense, which I assure you would be considerable. Easier to sleep where I work. This room isn’t large, but the whole building belongs to me, so I don’t feel cramped.”
“Not much good for work-life balance.”
“I haven’t been alive for more than seventy years.”
“I see.”
“It’s not so bad.” Kopil swirled tequila and ice. “RKC is a part of me, literally and figuratively. I built this Concern, and I have become a gear moving at its heart—a larger gear than many, but a gear nonetheless. When I sleep I see in my dreams the beast to which I have given birth. Thousands of miles of tunnel and pipe. Millions of people drink of us and live. Billions more spread throughout this mad world draw strength from Dresediel Lex. Men on the other side of the globe, in the southern Gleb, borrow our might to fight their wars. Ignorant children on six continents eat our grain and rejoice, though they do not know our name. So much depends on us. On me. Even at a time like this.”
He didn’t know how to respond, so he tried, “That must be stressful.”
“It’s no more than I asked for—than any of us asked for.” He sighed. “There is one thing you must understand about destroying gods, boy.”
“Only one?”
“You must be ready to take their place.”
“I was thinking something like that myself, at the end of the meeting.” Caleb glanced around the room, wondering how to change the subject without offending his boss. He blinked. “This room doesn’t have any doors.”
“Who needs them?”
“Most people.”
Kopil shrugged, and sipped tequila.
“Sir, why are you sending me north? Lives depend on this mission. But you’re sending a handful of Wardens, a Craftswoman, and a mid-level risk manager. Why not specialists? Why not an army?”
“If we send an army and we didn’t need one, we’ll have left Dresediel Lex weak for no reason, with an enemy loose inside our gates. If an army is needed, an army will be sent. The dead travel fast.”
“In that case why send Mal—I mean, Ms. Kekapania? I doubt she knows anything about pipelines and Tzimet that Ms. Mazetchul doesn’t. Or any of a hundred other Craftsmen and Craftswomen.”
“I’m sending her because I trust you.” The King in Red placed special weight on the last word in that sentence.
“You trust…” Caleb blinked. “Oh.”
“You see the outlines of my design.”
“You trust me. But you don’t trust her.”
Kopil could have been dead indeed for all the reaction he betrayed: a corpse arrayed in funeral red with a cup of sacrificial liquor in his hands. Beyond the windows, Wardens circled above Dresediel Lex.
“You’re sending her because you want to give her a chance to betray you. You think Heartstone sabotaged its own project, and you want to give Mal a chance to fail, or turn on us.”
“Those are two possibilities.”
“You know she and I are romantically involved.”
“I do.”
He saw the rest of it, and cursed himself. “It’s a long journey on to Seven Leaf by Couatl. Lots can happen on the way.”
Ruby stars glimmered in endless night.
“If Ms. Kekapania is a traitor, any observer you sent with her might not reach Seven Leaf Lake. Even their death would tell you nothing. Accidents happen. So you send an observer you think she likes, someone she would hesitate to destroy.”
“You are far too comfortable with conspiracies, Mr. Altemoc.”
“Comfortable isn’t the word I would choose.”
The skull shifted to one side, considering. “Say, in theory, that you have the following problem: the perfect woman for the job at hand was trained by an enemy so bitter that you devoured his Concern so he would no longer trouble you. Say he feels about you the way you feel about him, and say also that he is given to laying long plots and deep plans.”
“Do you really think Alaxic might be involved?”
“Al was always more of your father’s party than of mine.”
He thought of the old man’s face, cast lava red by the Serpents’ light. “Can I speak frankly, sir?”
Kopil waved him on.
“You’re playing long odds. Mal won’t betray the city.”
“If you trust her, why are you afraid to travel with her?”
Caleb had no answer. “I should sleep,” he said at last, turning away. “And prepare.”
There was no exit, so he walked toward the closet again.
“Let me get that for you,” the King in Red called after him.
Caleb did not stop. He tossed the liquid shadow cupped in his palm through the closet door. The shadow spread, like ink spilled in water, to obscure robes and suits and shoes. He stepped through; the black parted for him, and he was gone. Two steps, three, brought him out of the ink and into the boardroom.
In the crimson flat, Kopil watched the darkness recede from his closet.
“Interesting,” he said. If he had eyes, they would have narrowed. After exhausting the few seconds he could spare to puzzle irrelevant mysteries, he snapped his fingers and one of his kitchen walls swung open. Chihuac waited in his office with stacks of paperwork. The night was, unfortunately, still young.
23
Caleb could not sleep in his soulless room. RKC kept emergency quarters at 667 Sansilva for visitors and workers too busy to travel home: efficiencies with all the comfort and warmth of a grain thresher. He tumbled on the hard bed for an hour before he gave up, dressed, and rode the lift down to the street.
Stars menaced the silent city. Even the protesters were mostly asleep, coats bundled to serve as pillows: bow-backed men and broad-shouldered women, young and old, poor and middle-class. Children slept in a clutch on the sidewalk. Ancient men huddled near a flickering portable fire.
Zombies in burlap jumpsuits shambled among the sleepers. They swept the street with broad stiff brooms and speared garbage with rakes and pikes. RKC contracted with a minor Concern to keep the local streets clean, and the revenants came every evening, rain or sleet, protest or riot, earthquake or conflagration, to do their duty.
Sea wind bore the scent of fish and salt off the shark-infested Pax. A few blocks in from shore, the stench of crowds, pavement, and livestock mugged the wind in a dark alley and took its place.
The Wardens guarding RKC’s perimeter shifted to let Caleb pass. He stepped over an unconscious child and turned left toward Muerte Coffee.
The shop’s windows were beacons in the bruised night. Caleb bought a cup of spiced chocolate from a clerk no livelier than the street sweepers, and retreated into grave-cool darkness. He sat on a sidewalk bench and watched dead men move among the sleeping. Chocolate sank a plumb line to his core.