Frank Tuttle

Brown River Queen

Chapter One

Hammers fell by the hundreds. Lumber wagons rumbled past, either filled to bursting with building materials or freshly emptied and rushing back to the sawmills and the foundries for more timbers and nails. Saws bit deep into kiln-dried pine planks, filling the air with sawdust and the steady scratch-scratch-scratch sound of honest working men earning an honest day’s wage.

Me?

I sat, fundament firmly in the chair I’d placed on the sidewalk. While I sat, I watched a pair of honest working men earn their honest day’s wage by hanging and painting my sturdy new door.

The workmen, a father and son outfit who shared but did not revel in the name Wartlip, were less than appreciative of my audience. For what I was paying them, I decided they could bear the unwelcome scrutiny.

My new door is a beauty. It’s white with a fancy, round glass window worked in at eye level. The window’s thick glass is reinforced with a number of steel bars crossed so that worthies such as myself can peek through them, but objectionable materials like crossbow bolts or the sharp ends of swords will be caught before ruining, for instance, my favorite face. The inside of the oak door conceals a solid iron plate, which means Ogres can spend their days trying to kick their way inside and get nothing for their troubles but twelve hairy, bruised Ogre toes.

Right below the window is a bright brass placard that bears the legend ‘Markhat amp; Hog. Finders for Hire.’

And right below that is the traditional finder’s eye, etched into the brass so that patrons who might have missed the recent rush toward universal literacy can still get close enough to my well-manicured hand to cross my palm with money.

I’m Markhat, founder and senior member of the firm. Miss Gertriss Hog, who bitterly proclaims she does most of the actual work these days, was out doing most of the actual work.

I took another sip of my ice-chilled beer and eyed my new white door critically.

“That top hinge creaks a bit.”

The elder Wartlip muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath.

The Wartlips, like every tradesmen in Rannit these days, had all the work they could get and then some. With half the city lying in various degrees of ruin, anyone who could grasp a hammer suddenly claimed to be a master craftsman and demanded the exorbitant fees to prove it.

I’d waited three days past the appointed date for the Wartlips to show. I wasn’t letting them walk away until my office had a door again, because I knew getting them back to Cambrit Street would be the work of a lifetime.

So they grunted and shimmed and frowned and banged until the door swung without creaking and shut without slamming and opened without a yank or a kick.

I counted out coins. The Wartlips had been adamant about coin. “We ain’t takin’ none of that paper money,” the elder Wartlip insisted, shaking his finger at me for emphasis. “Who’s to say it’ll be any good come tomorrow?”

I hadn’t argued the point. Rannit had nearly fallen to a trio of foreign wand-wavers intent on toppling the Regency and installing some alleged heir to the old Kingdom crown barely a month ago. The invasion had failed, thanks in no small part to my own heroic efforts, but nerves were still shaken and emotions were still raw, and the Regent’s fancy new paper money was viewed by many with open suspicion.

So I counted out five coins, tossed the younger Wartlip a smaller one all his own, and bade the Wartlips a cheery good day.

They and their tools were loaded in their patchwork wagon and headed downtown before I even managed a wave.

Three-leg Cat sidled out of the alley between my place and Mama Hog’s. He gave the door a good hard glare, sniffed it tentatively, and planted his ragged butt down before it. He then set about licking his remaining front paw with a feline air that managed to convey his utter disregard for doors far and wide, even closed ones that stood between him and his food bowl.

“Oh, go on in,” I said, working my new latch. The door swung open without even the faintest ominous creak-I remembered to grab my chair, and Three-leg and I headed indoors for breakfast and meditation, respectively.

I was deeply immersed in profound meditation when the very first knock sounded on my unsullied new door.

Three-leg Cat beat me to it, eager to head out and impose his unique brand of feline terror on the alleys and stoops of Cambrit Street. I took advantage of my new peeping window to see who was calling before I worked the latch.

Outside, wrapped in a mainsail’s worth of black silk against the midday sun, was Evis himself, peering back at me through his tinted spectacles. The halfdead don’t love sunlight the same way I don’t love being bathed in red-hot coals.

“Hurry, please,” said Evis as I fumbled with the lock. “I can’t pay you if I’ve been baked to cinders on your doorstep.”

I managed to swing the door open. Three-leg Cat darted out, heedless of the halfdead at the door. I’ve noticed most animals shy away from Evis, which I believe pains him deeply.

I stood aside and motioned Evis in. He glided into the comfortable shadows of my office, not quite running but not ambling either. I closed the door quickly and resolved to fashion some sort of shade for the window-glass. Even that much light would be a nuisance for Evis and his dead-eyed kin.

“Sorry about the light,” I said as Evis stripped off the top layer of his flowing day suit. “I’ll do something about that before your next visit.”

Evis shrugged it off but kept his dark glasses on. “Thank you. Everything getting back to normal?”

I sat. Evis sat. He kept his hat on and tilted his head so his face remained in deep shadow.

“As normal as normal gets. Business has picked up. Gertriss is out working now. She’ll be sorry she missed you.”

And she would. My junior partner and Evis were spending a lot of time together of late. Had been since their trip up the Brown River on House Avalante’s new-fangled steamboat.

If I was Mama Hog I’d be making pointed comments about all that. Gertriss is Mama’s niece, and Mama is none too thrilled about Gertriss and her recent choice of company. But since I’m not a four-foot-tall soothsayer who claims to be a century and a half old, I don’t stick my nose where it doesn’t belong unless someone is paying me for the effort.

Evis just nodded and put his feet on my desk. His hand moved to his jacket pocket and produced a pair of the expensive cigars he normally keeps in a humidor in his office.

“Uh oh,” I said, opening my desk drawer. I pulled out my notepad and my good pen. “Who’s dead, who’s missing, and how much of the story are you going to leave out?”

Evis kept his lips tightly shut but managed to feign an expression of deep and sincere injury.

“Now is that any way to respond to an offer of a Lowland Sweet?” he asked. “The last time we smoked these you remarked that it was your absolute favorite.”

“And you suddenly remembered that and grabbed a pair and ran all the way down here in the sun just to have a puff. Remarkable.” I put the tip of the pen in my inkwell and then down on the paper.

Evis ignored me and began cutting off the ends with a fancy steel cigar clipper. I found my box of matches and plopped them down on the table.

“So spill it,” I said. “And thanks. I do enjoy these.”

Evis handed me a cigar and struck a match. I let him light it.

It’s not every day a free Lowland Sweet walks through the door.

“Times are changing,” Evis announced after lighting his Lowland and puffing out a perfect smoke ring. “That run at restoring the old Kingdom was the last.”

“So say you.”

“So I do. Care to guess where Prince got the money to rebuild?”

Word from up the Brown is that the storm that nearly wrecked Rannit was a mere ghost of wind compared to the one the Corpsemaster loosed upon our erstwhile enemies in Prince. We’re still getting the odd rooftop or twisted shell of a building, lifted whole from streets in faraway Prince, drifting past on the lazy, muddy water of the Brown. No bodies, though. Not a one.

The Corpsemaster’s wrath is both thorough and lingering.

“No idea. I thought the city fathers in Prince went broke financing their invasion.”

“They did. But our very own Regent graciously made them a loan. At thirty percent interest. Rannit owns Prince now, Markhat. And the Regent won’t be letting them forget that for a very long time.”

I whistled. I hadn’t even heard that rumored.

Evis grinned a brief toothy vampire grin.

“Looks like our military careers are over,” he said. “It’ll be a hundred years before anyone takes another stab at Rannit. Maybe longer. But here we are, still drawing down a Captain’s pay. By the way, any word from the old spook lately?”

Old spook was code for Corpsemaster. Neither Evis nor I had seen her or her black carriage since the dust-up with Prince. Evis had gone so far as to hint that open speculation in some circles indicated the Corpsemaster might have fallen in the fray, or been reduced by the effort to such a state that she’d gone into hiding or hibernation.

I wasn’t quite ready to write her off so quickly, so I just shrugged.

“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned ‘pay,’ you know.” I tried and failed to blow a smoke ring. “Not that I don’t enjoy your company, but what really brought you out for a stroll in the sun?”

“I’m here to hire the famous Captain Markhat on behalf of House Avalante.”

“Didn’t you read the placard? I’m a humble finder, not a Captain. My marching days are done. I’ve taken up pacifism and a strict philosophy of passive non-violence.”

“What’s your philosophy on five hundred crowns-paid in gold-for taking a relaxing dinner cruise down the Brown River to Bel Loit and back? With meals, booze, and as many of these cigars as you can carry, thrown in for free?”

I blew out a ragged column of grey-brown smoke.

“I’m flexible on such matters. But I’m troubled by the offer of five hundred crowns.”

“Make it six hundred, then.”

“I will. If I decide to take it at all. Because that’s a lot of gold, Mr. Prestley. Even Avalante doesn’t just hand the stuff out to see my winning smile. What exactly is worth seven hundred crowns to House Avalante?”

Evis winced. “You are, believe it or not. Look, Markhat. This isn’t just any old party barge outing. The Brown River Queen is a palace with a hull. The guest list reads like Yule at the High House. Ministers. Lords. Ladies. Opera stars. Generals.“

“And? You said it was a pleasure cruise. We won the war and didn’t lose so much as a potato wagon. Handshakes and promotions all around. Why do you need me for eight hundred crowns?”

Evis lifted his hands in surrender.

“Because the Regent himself is coming along for the ride,” he said in a whisper. “Yes. You heard me. The Regent. For every ten who love him there are a thousand who want to scoop out his eyes and boil them and feed them to him.”

“On your boat.”

“On our boat. This is it, Markhat. It’s the culmination of thirty years of negotiations and diplomacy and bribery. House Avalante is a single step away from taking its place at the right hand of the most powerful man in the world. He’ll have his bodyguards. He’ll have his staff. He’ll have his spies and his informants and his eyes and his ears, and that’s just fine with us. But Markhat, we want the man kept safe. We want trouble kept off the Queen. We want a nice quiet cruise from here to Bel Loit and back, and the House figures if anyone can spot trouble coming, it’s you.”

“When you look at things that way, nine hundred crowns is really quite a bargain.”

“Nine hundred crowns it is.” Evis blew another smoke ring and then sailed a second one through it. “And one more thing. Bring the missus. She eats, drinks, stays for free, courtesy of Avalante. Is that a deal?”

“An even thousand crowns for watching rich folks drink. I think you just bought yourself a finder, Mr. Prestley.”

“Surely you have a pair of those awful domestic beers hidden away in your icebox,” said Evis. “I believe we have a toast to make.”

I hurried to the back, knocked damp sawdust off the bottles, and together Evis and I toasted my regrettable return to honest work.

Evis stuck around and drank beer and we talked dates and times, which I dutifully scribbled onto my notepad. He wrapped himself in black silk and darted back out into the sun maybe an hour later, leaving me to my thoughts.

A thousand gold crowns in good solid gold coin. All for a week of work that, on the surface, seemed to involve nothing more perilous than lounging around a floating casino while maintaining an aloof air of menace.

A thousand crowns, though. That’s a lot of money, even in Rannit’s booming post-War economy. A fellow could live quite well on a fraction of that.

Which meant someone high up at Avalante considered the threat of violence against the Regent quite real. Evis didn’t seem to agree. But he hadn’t blinked when I’d upped the ante, either, which meant his bosses had instructed him that money was no object.

“An even thousand crowns,” I said aloud. Darla would be thrilled. We could put a fancy slate roof on our new place on Middling Lane. Hell, we could tear the house down to the last timber and build it back again with twice as many rooms and still have money left over.

If, that is, a fellow lived long enough to collect his shiny gold coins.

I pushed the thought aside, gathered up the empty bottles, and eventually followed Evis out into the bright and bustling light of day.

Chapter Two

I made the block, wary of Ogres and their carts and their general disregard for pedestrian safety every step of the way.

The Arwheat brothers were up on their roof, screaming at each other between bouts of furious hammering. Old Mr. Bull was out on his stoop, muttering to himself, sweeping the same two-by-two step he’d been sweeping since sunrise. I wished him good morning as I passed and was rewarded with a cackle and a brief toothless grin.

Blind Mr. Waters stood in the open door of his bathhouse, squinting up at a sun and a sky he’d never once seen. I knew he was checking on the weather. A bright warm day like today would bring more customers in, requiring him to burn more wood to heat more bathwater.

“Good day to ye, Markhat,” he said as I approached. “Gonna be a right nice day, by the feel of it.”

He held up his right hand, letting the sunlight play through his fingers.

“Looks that way. Good for business.”

The old man nodded, all smiles. “That it is. I ken you’re bound elsewhere, though, is that right?”

“Afraid so, Mr. Waters. I’ll be back soon, though. Miss that brand of soap you carry.”

“Well, I’ll have a hot bath ready when ye are, finder. Take care now.”

“You too.”

And he was gone, closing his door behind him.

I walked on, waving now and then, speaking now and then. I may not live on Cambrit anymore, but a part of me will always call these leaning old timber-frames and none-too-square doors home.

There was one door in particular at which I needed to knock. I’d been dreading the task for days, and even there in the cheery sunshine I nearly just kept walking toward the tidy little single-story cottage with the white picket fence and the bright yellow door that Darla and I bought a few weeks ago.

But in the end, I turned and marched up to Mama’s door and was just about to knock when Mama herself called out from inside.

“I see you standin’ there, boy. Ain’t no need to knock, it ain’t locked.”

“Is that an invitation, Mama?”

Boots scraped floor, and the door swung open.

“Well, it weren’t writ on fancy parchment and delivered with no box of fancy chocolates, but I reckon it was an invite all the same,” she said. “Now are ye comin’ inside or not?”

I took off my hat and ducked under Mama’s doorframe and followed her into the shadows. Mama’s card-and-potion shop is never quite the same from visit to visit. On previous trips, I’d seen shelves filled with jars containing dried birds. I’ve seen neat rows of dead bats, each wearing a tiny mask, nailed in ranks to the walls. Once she even had the place covered with fine nets, inside which a thousand crickets crawled and crept and sang.

So I was prepared for anything-except, perhaps, what I saw.

Mama’s tiny front room was immaculate. The shelves of dried birds were gone, revealing plain wood walls suspiciously bare of cobwebs and charms. A few tasteful paintings hung here and there. Candles in sconces filled the room with a golden, soothing light. The floors were swept and mopped and uncluttered. The black iron cauldron, which had been bubbling with something potently malodorous since the day I’d first set foot on Cambrit, was gone, leaving only a barely visible scorch mark on the floor behind.

“You aimin’ to catch flies with that open mouth of yours, boy?”

“Mama. What happened in here?”

There was a small oak table set in a corner. It sported white lace doilies and a simple red fireflower in a plain crystal vase. Two chairs were pushed neatly beneath the table. Mama pulled out a chair, sat, and motioned for me to do the same.

“The times is changin’, boy. And I’m changin’ with them. Folks is less appreciative of all that old-timey backwoods mumbo-jumbo these days. ‘Specially well-to-do folks.”

The candles on the wall were arranged so that half of Mama Hog’s face was kept in shadow. She leaned forward and I could only see her in silhouette, her wild shock of hair lending a faint corona of light to her form.

“Watch this, boy.”

She closed her eyes and began to whisper, raising her hands beside her face as she spoke.

A light formed at the center of the table, right above the fireflower’s blood-red petals. It was only a spark at first, but it flickered and expanded and intensified, rising and growing, first as bright as a candle and then brighter still.

“Speak,” croaked Mama, opening her eyes.

The light flared. Within it appeared a skull.

A child’s skull, pitiful and small and very, very familiar.

I cussed.

The skull clacked its teeth and issued a faint giggle and vanished. The light that held it flickered and went out as well.

Mama clenched her jaw and crossed her stubby arms over her chest.

“Buttercup, honey, come out,” I said.

More giggling came from above and with it the telltale sound of bare little banshee feet scampering away on the rooftop.

“Mama.”

“Don’t you Mama me, boy.” She waved a finger in my face. “Look here. My niece left the family trade and took to finding. I ain’t got no other suitable kin. And I ain’t getting any younger. What’s the harm in usin’ that banshee a bit if’n it keeps a roof over our heads and soup in our pots? Ain’t neither free nor cheap, and you knows it.”

“You taught Buttercup that trick?”

“She’s always playin’ with that skull anyways, boy. You tried to take it away from her a half dozen times. So have I. But I reckon there ain’t no denying her that thing, and why not gain some good from it?”

We’d rescued Buttercup from an ancient crypt a little over a year ago, and had been hiding her in plain sight by passing her off as Gertriss’s stunted daughter ever since. Mama sticks a pair of obviously fake wings to her back and claims Buttercup is a rare tame forest sprite. The neighbors snicker and nod and wink knowingly at each other, which is exactly the reaction we’d hoped for.

The skull is a more recent and disturbing addition to our little family. The sorcerer who held it expressed a desire to see me dead-I’d declined to participate, and in the fracas, the sorcerer had fallen. I grabbed the skull on my way out, not wanting to leave behind any potentially vengeful witnesses to our little disagreement.

We’d still been trying to decide how to dispose of the skull when Buttercup found it. The tiny banshee may be a thousand years old, but she’s still childlike in some ways, and finding the wand-waver’s talisman filled her with glee. She cuddled it and carried it and whispered nonsense to it constantly. Hiding the skull did no good. We’d never found a place that could conceal it against Buttercup’s sharp little banshee eyes.

Mama even brought in her friend Granny Knot, who claims she speaks to the dead. Granny pronounced the skull haunted by the ghost of an innocent, bound to the bone by a wand-waver’s dark spell, a spell she dared not attempt to unravel. What powers the skull might command, she could not or would not say.

Not that it mattered. Buttercup took the skull everywhere, and on those rare instances she wasn’t holding it, she hid it in places only a sure-footed banshee could reach.

Mama let the ghost of a grin slip. She’d won and she knew it, and I realized she’d been planning this little spook show for days if not weeks.

I sighed. I’d come to try and make peace with Mama, and if I hadn’t expected some stunt like this from her I had only myself to blame.

“Fine. Mama. I didn’t come here to argue with you. You haven’t been coming around lately. When you do see me, you don’t talk. I think we both know why.”

Mama crossed her arms again.

“I’m sure I ain’t got no idea at all what you’re talking about, boy.”

“I’m sure you do. Darla and I got married and you weren’t invited.”

“I reckon it’s your business who you invites to your nuptials, boy. Ain’t no concern of mine.”

I took a deep breath. “We didn’t plan to get married that day, Mama. I’ve tried to explain that. We were just there to keep Darla’s friend safe.”

Mama pulled in air and puffed up. The effect was more toad-like than imposing, but I got the message.

“I thought the world was ending, Mama. The sky went dark. We saw flashes. Heard what I thought was cannon fire. Everyone in Rannit was sure we were dead. You’ve heard the stories. You know I’m telling you the truth.”

“Well, it weren’t no cannons and it weren’t no army and it weren’t no end of the world now, was it?”

I shook my head. “No. It was just Evis and his steamboat full of fireworks. But we didn’t know that. I thought we were about to die. It just…happened.”

Mama snorted.

“Mama, I swear. I didn’t mean to slight you. Darla didn’t mean to slight you.”

“I was planning on deliverin’ a blessing to you both on your wedding day,” said Mama. “Been brewing up a charm for it for a year. A solid year, boy. Put a lot of work into that there charm, I did.”

“I know you did. And we both appreciate that.” I stood. Mama didn’t look up. “We miss you, Mama. I miss you. I’m sorry things happened the way they did. Wars have a way of changing plans whether we want them changed or not. You know that.”

“Then you went and bought a fancy house and moved,” said Mama as my hand closed on her latch. “Without so much as a fare-thee-well.”

“You wouldn’t open your door. Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me knock.”

I got no reply.

“Things have changed, for both of us,” I said, not turning. “Gertriss is living in my old place. I’m married and newly with house. You’ve hidden your birds and bought a broom. But think about this, Mama. We’re still the same people. We can still be as much a part of each other’s lives as we ever were. But that won’t happen if you don’t open the door when somebody knocks.”

Mama didn’t reply. I didn’t wait.

Stubborn as a mule is my old friend Mama Hog.

I left her to her tasteful paintings and fresh-scrubbed floors and headed north, toward home.

The Missus and I have a standing lunch date, breakable only in cases of extreme emergency. She hoofs it toward home from the dress shop, I make my way from the office, and we meet up at the corner of River and Fane before strolling the last three blocks home.

I reached the corner first and killed a quarter of an hour picking out a yellow peony for my lapel and a red fireflower for Darla. Then I decided to ply my detective skills by slipping down the alley by Sylvester’s Hat Emporium and sneaking up behind my betrothed, who was hurrying down Fane with a decided spring in her step and a brown paper parcel in her arms.

I made it within two strides of her when she slowed suddenly and held the package out beside her.

“For heaven’s sake, take this. It’s heavy.”

I took it, and it was.

Darla turned and grinned. “It’s your shoes. I know the sound of your footsteps, my dear, and I can pick them out of a crowd, even a noisy lunchtime crowd.”

“From now on, I’m going barefoot.” I moved the parcel around and drew her in for a kiss, which is no mean feat when neither party stops walking. We made it brief and managed to avoid any collisions. “How is my favorite wife today?”

“Famished. Someone interrupted my breakfast.”

I feigned surprise. “What mannerless ape might that have been? And what’s in the box? More lavish gifts for your new husband?”

She laughed. “Mostly it’s for the kitchen. I found a silverware pattern I liked. Fireflowers and vines.”

“My favorite.”

My beloved grinned. “You’d be content eating with that old knife you keep in your boot.”

“As long as I’m eating.”

“I got you a new hat, too. You’ll love it. Solid black with a dark grey band.” She turned and adjusted the hat I was wearing. “Elegant with just a touch of roguishness.”

I nodded. “That’s me. Elephant with a touch of robbery. But you aren’t fooling anyone, dearest. Confess. You’re in cahoots with my junior partner, aren’t you?”

We stopped to let a nanny and her pair of shrieking infants pass.

The quizzical expression Darla turned toward me was flawless, right down to the tilt of her head and the barely-raised eyebrows.

“In cahoots how?”

I laid my finger on the hatbox’s ornate stamping. “A new black hat. From Carfax. I’m no hat maker, Darla dear, but I know how they rank, and this is the top of the pile.”

“You need a new hat.”

“For our cruise on Evis’s new boat. Since we’ll be rubbing well-dressed elbows with the upper crusts of Rannit’s worthies.”

“Will it help if I flutter my eyelashes and pretend I’ve never heard of Evis?”

“Nope. When did Gertriss tell you?”

“Yesterday. I got myself an evening gown. Black as a crow’s feather. Slit up the side, up to here.” She indicated a spot high up on her right hip.

“You’ll cause a riot.”

She laughed. “Well, if I do, you’re being paid to quell it. Speaking of being paid, how much did you manage to drag out of the poor pale soul?”

“A thousand crowns. In gold.”

She clutched my arm and danced a step.

“A thousand?”

I nodded. “Easy. Without that arm, my suit won’t hang straight. Yes. We’re rich, my dear. Almost rich enough to buy hats from Carfax and gowns from-”

“Eloise’s.”

“Eloise’s, then. So, what’s for lunch? Caviar and hundred-year-old brandy?”

“Sandwiches. Ham. Two slices, since we’re rich.”

I kissed her cheek. “See how quickly decadence takes over? Next we’ll be hiring servants to fan our brows and sleeping on pillows stuffed with money.”

We stopped on the corner while a blue-capped Watchman waved a pair of lumber wagons through the intersection. Darla said something but it was lost in the rumble of wagon wheels and the clip-clop of heavy hooves.

A dozen other pedestrians took up positions beside or behind us while the wagons thundered past.

I was still trying to puzzle out what Darla might have said when a slightly-built young woman dressed all in black tapped me on my left shoulder, smiled at me, and plunged a long sharp knife directly toward my favorite kidney.

I dropped my heavy parcel in the vicinity of her toes and slapped the blade away. Her dainty hand darted under mine, reversed, and bore in on my gut. She never lost her smile.

I half-turned and let her put a rip in my jacket and stepped back. She tried to follow and nearly tripped over Darla’s fireflower-embossed silverware and my good new hat.

It was only then that I heard the shrill and rising banshee’s scream.

The smiling woman with the knife heard it too. Buttercup’s volume is in no way limited by her diminutive stature. Her inhuman howl rose up and up, higher and higher, reaching for a crescendo no human lungs would ever approach, much less match.

The woman hesitated.

I had it in mind to rush her. Grab her knife hand, take a cut if need be, but knock her off her feet and put a knee in her gut and hold her knife hand down until someone could grab the blade.

Instead, Darla, my newlywed wife, simply grabbed the woman by her hair and threw her into the street.

One brief shriek and it was over. The driver of the wagon that ran my would-be murderess down never slowed and certainly didn’t halt.

I turned in a quick circle as my Army knife made its way into my hand. People were shouting and pointing. Some turned away in horror. Others crowded closer to the curb for a better look at the ruined body in the street. No one approached us with mayhem in mind or appeared to slink guiltily away into the crowd.

Buttercup’s hair-raising banshee cry faded quickly. I scanned the nearby rooftops, caught a brief glimpse of a tiny, wild-haired figure scampering away.

Darla pressed herself close.

“Are you wounded?”

“No. You?”

“No.” I felt Darla shiver. Watch whistles blew up and down the street. The Watchman directing traffic came stomping our way.

“What do I say?”

“Crazy woman pulled a knife on me. I pushed her away. She fell into the street.”

“What if someone saw?”

“They’ll get half a dozen different stories anyway. I pushed. She fell.”

“What about Buttercup?”

“I didn’t hear a thing. Did you?”

She shivered again. “That woman. Did you know her?”

“No. Never met her. You?”

Darla shook her head. I saw various eyes cast wholly innocent glances down at our parcel so I snatched it up before it sprouted shoes and ambled away.

“She meant to kill you. Right here on the street.”

“Maybe she couldn’t abide black hats.”

Watchmen stormed into the street, whistles blowing, arms raised against traffic. Blood was pooling and spreading around the crumpled body on the cobblestones. I looked but couldn’t see the knife.

A pair of Watchmen shouldered their way through the crowd. I recognized their faces about the time they recognized mine.

“Well, ain’t this a surprise,” said one. He spat on the sidewalk in open defiance of the Regent’s new ordinance against gratuitous expectoration on public thoroughfares. “Markhat next to a body.”

“I reckon you didn’t have nothin’ to do with this, either,” said the other.

“I wish I could say I was just a bystander,” I said. “But today’s your lucky day because I pushed that woman right in front of a beer wagon.”

I returned Darla’s fierce hug and put the parcel in her hands. “Go on home,” I said as the Watchmen exchanged frowns and put themselves on either side of me. “This is likely to take all day.”

Chapter Three

Evis paced, a wine glass of something thick and dark in his left hand and a Lowland Sweet glowing red in the other.

“And you swear you didn’t know the woman? We’re the only ones here, you know. Your sordid secrets are safe with me.”

I cussed, but not at length or with true passion. My time spent with the Watch had left me hoarse and tired. Evis puffed and sipped until I was done.

“So she’s not an old flame inflamed by your recent nuptials.”

I opened my mouth to cuss some more but decided on a long draught of Avalante’s good red wine instead.

“You can ask me that another half dozen times and I’ll answer the same. I never met the woman. I certainly never pitched any woo in her direction. Not my type.”

“You said she was a looker.”

“She was, but she smiled while she stabbed. Which means she enjoyed stabbing people. Not exactly a quality I look for in a woman.”

Evis nodded. “All right. Strange woman with a fondness for knives tries to gut you on a street corner with a crowd of dozens all around and the Watch waving at traffic not fifty feet away. You drop a box of fancy spoons on her toes. Your wife takes an exception to the whole affair, and strange woman winds up tragically deceased, but you take the credit for her mishap.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“The Watch buying your story?”

“The important parts are true. A dozen people saw her try to knife an unarmed man.”

“Not very discreet with her murderous rages, was she? A noontime stabbing on a busy street. I’d say she wanted plenty of witnesses.”

“Same thought occurred to me.” It was a troubling thought. Especially knowing that, had the knife found its mark and the lady had vanished into the crowd, the Watch would have sighed and rolled their eyes and written my untimely demise down to the fury of a woman scorned.

Evis drained his glass and sat down behind his desk. The single small candle illuminating the room barely lit his face, but I saw his brow crease in a pale frown.

“All this within hours of my leaving your office this morning.” He leaned forward, fingertips together, his bloodless skin ghostly in the flickering candlelight. “I’m not a believer in coincidence these days, Markhat.”

“You think someone doesn’t want me on the Queen?”

Evis sighed and the candle flame flickered, nearly extinguished. “No. I can’t even entertain that thought. We’ve been so careful, finder. So damned careful.”

“Maybe Avalante has been careful. Maybe the Regent’s people haven’t. Or maybe this has nothing to do with Avalante or Regents or steamboats at all. Maybe the woman just woke up batty and grabbed a knife and didn’t like my shoelaces.”

“Too bad we can’t ask her.”

“Darla didn’t mean to kill her.”

“Not what I meant.” His dead eyes met mine. “If the old spook was around, we could just let her rummage around in the body. She can yank memories out of fresh ones.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“She’d probably roast me if she knew I knew.”

“So the Corpsemaster is really gone? Not just napping somewhere?”

If it’s possible for a candlelit halfdead to look any more glum, Evis did just that. “We’ve been watching the dead wagons, Markhat. Since she dropped out of sight, they’ve been pulling nearly twice the usual number of bodies out of alleys in the wrong parts of town. Bodies that show no recent wounds. To quote a certain dead wagon loader, ‘they look like they was walkin’ around one minute an’ dead the next.’“

I cussed some more.

The Corpsemaster used the War to secretly swell her ranks with the dead. They had returned to Rannit alongside everyone else, with none the wiser, and since they’d slowly inserted themselves into the social order as drunks and weed addicts and street people-invisible to the living, but always awaiting the Corpsemaster’s commands.

Evis nodded. “Yes. They’re just falling over dead, practically in rows. That doesn’t bode well for us ever seeing the Corpsemaster’s black carriage again, does it?”

“You think she really bought it going up against the three wand-wavers from Prince?”

Evis shrugged. “Beginning to look that way.”

“You still getting a Captain’s pay?”

“Every month like clockwork. You?”

“Same here. In old coins.”

Evis leaned back into the comfort of the shadows. “The House considers it vital that the Corpsemaster’s status is known before we entertain the Regent, Markhat. If she’s dead or incapacitated, well, we need to know.”

I groaned. “Oh no. Nothing doing, even for old friends, even for old friends who yanked me out of a Watch house earlier today. I paid the Corpsemaster a visit once, yes, but I’m not about to repeat that. Please extend to the House my sincere regrets, but knocking on the old spook’s door a second time is not something I’m willing to do.”

“You won’t be the one knocking,” said Evis. He snuffed out his cigar in a solid silver ashtray and sighed, tired and raspy. “I’ll have that honor. And it isn’t the House asking you to go. It’s me. As a friend. I don’t want to go there alone.”

I cussed, dry mouth and all, with passion this time.

Evis had the courtesy not to grin with victory.

I didn’t lie to Darla.

I sat down with her on our new porch and we watched the neighbors across Middling Lane argue over where to plant a pair of knee-high rosebushes. The man of the house, who Darla dubbed Fussy Britches, wanted one at each corner of the steps leading up to their cheery blue door. The missus claimed they’d grow out and wind up being in the way. I named her the Queen for her imperious tone and habit of employing the royal “we” in reference to the digging of the holes.

Darla and I held hands. Our shoulders touched. We spoke in whispers while the controversy over the rosebushes raged back and forth.

I laid it all out. I was heading for the old spook’s house, after Curfew, with Evis and any Avalante foot soldiers he cared to bring along. Darla knew about the iron key the Corpsemaster once gave me. She knew what little I knew about the room the key unlocked.

I half expected Darla to insist on coming along. But if I surprised her by eschewing the easy lie, she surprised me by accepting the whole business as calmly as if I’d just announced a stroll around the neighborhood in the cool of the evening.

The rosebushes wound up at each end of the house. Fussy Britches did the digging with a rusty shovel and a fair amount of grunting and face-mopping. Her Majesty, the Queen of Middling Lane, put hands on hips and helped out by glaring at the excavated dirt so that it didn’t dare make a sudden dash for freedom.

Our neighbors surveyed their handiwork, graced us with smiles and waves, and departed indoors.

Darla and I sat on our porch and kept whispering. The sun set. Night sneaked up behind us and by the time Evis and his carriage stopped at the curb we’d run out of things to whisper except goodbye.

I’d been expecting two carriages, each filled with somber Avalante halfdead-each armed against the night’s potential for mayhem.

Instead, I was greeted by Evis and ignored by the slight hooded figure who sat beside him.

One black cab. A single human driver. Not a brace of cannon or a trebuchet in sight.

“Evening, finder,” said Evis. His smile was wet and toothy in the near-dark of the carriage. “Ready to dance where Angels fear to tread?”

“I’d sooner get a beer and call it a night, if that’s all right with you. Who’s your friend? Or am I not supposed to ask?”

The robes stirred. The arms lifted and gloved hands emerged from the sleeves long enough to pull back the hood.

A woman was inside. She’d been young. She was corpse-pale, like Evis-but unlike Evis, her lips and her eyes were sewn shut. Tiny points of blood still oozed around the threads.

She turned her ravaged lips up in a smile.

You may call me Stitches, Mr. Markhat.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose. I heard her words but my ears hadn’t played their usual role in the process.

“You get used to it,” said Evis with a chuckle. “Stitches is the House’s finest forensic sorcerer. She’s going along with us. Mind your manners and say hello.”

“Hello, Miss Stitches.” I cleared my throat. “Nice to meet you.”

Likewise. Mr. Prestley holds you in high regard. I trust my appearance will not cause you discomfort.

“Not at all. I’m glad to have a sorcerer along.” I’d nearly used the term wand-waver. In the Army, I’d seen similar slips of the tongue turn fatal more than once.

Stitches, still smiling, pulled her cowl down over her face.

Your association with the Corpsemaster is rare, finder. I understand you have been inside her home. Can you remember what you saw there?

“Bodies. Some were dusty, like they’d been standing in place for a long time.” I thought back, wondering if my new friend Stitches could pluck thoughts out of my head as easily as she put words in it. “No living staff that I saw. Old furniture. Big plain doors. The Corpsemaster didn’t decorate to impress.”

Were you able to pass freely over thresholds? Did you see any evidence of protective magics?

I shrugged. “Bodies opened the doors for me, once I was inside. I don’t remember entering or leaving. I don’t recall any glowing objects, any walls of fire, any lakes of scorpions, if that’s what you mean.”

The hood bobbed in a nod.

My experience was similar.

“You’ve been in the old spook’s-that is, the Corpsemaster’s home?”

The hood turned to Evis. Evis nodded after a moment and reached into a pocket. When he withdrew his hand, Stitches held up her own as well.

Each held an old iron key. Each key was twin to the one in my pocket.

It seems we have this in common, said Stitches. A hint of bemusement touched her words. If we survive this night, it will be because we were all-at one time or another-invited to return.

“She always this cheerful, Evis?”

“You ever met a cheerful sorcerer?” Evis put his key away. “But she’s right. The Corpsemaster didn’t just hand out her house keys willy-nilly. Why’d she give you yours, Markhat?”

I figure there’s a time and a place to keep secrets, and neither of them is when you’re seated across from a sorceress who can probably not only read your mind but yank it out and poke holes in it if she so desires.

“It was right before the bunch from Prince hit Rannit. My key unlocks a secret room. She said I could use it to find safety if Rannit fell. You?”

“Got mine years ago when the House first got cozy with her. She said it would unlock an armory. I was only to use it if Avalante was backed into a corner.”

Mine unlocks the front door. I was instructed to use it only in times of mortal peril.

I bit back a presumptuous comment. Evis saw and gave me the faintest of nods. He’d come to the same conclusion.

The Corpsemaster’s keys were perhaps not the altruistic gifts we’d thought. Or maybe they were, but only as an aside-the old witch had meant for us to come charging to her rescue, if she were to be injured and gone to ground.

Such cynics you both are. Nevertheless, I must concur.

“Doesn’t change a thing,” said Evis. “We still need to know.”

I snorted. “You might. I don’t. Good thing I enjoy your fancy cigars so much, Mr. Prestley. Else I might be tempted to remember pressing engagements elsewhere.”

An idle threat, Mr. Markhat. You would no more abandon your friend than you would sprout wings and fly. Which may well be your undoing.

“What’s your excuse?”

My only reply was a welcome silence in my head.

A match scratched and flared. Evis pulled at his Lowland Sweet until the end of the cigar glowed red. Then he offered one to me.

We smoked without conversation as the carriage rattled through the night, all the way to Portend Street and the tall black lampposts that mark the beginning of Cauldron Town.

We pulled to the curb in a convenient cleft of shadows. Stitches left Evis and me in the cab while she crept around it, muttering and splashing strange lights on the wheels. Evis and the driver exchanged a few soft whispers, and Stitches climbed back inside and we were off.

It is said that even the Regent dare not cross Portend heading east. Because that’s Cauldron Town, where Rannit’s sorcerous sorts dwell, and they have little love for the mere mortals who scurry about their feet.

But cross Portend Street we did, bound for the Corpsemaster’s dark house. We didn’t get half a block from the street lamps of Portend before the air took on an impossible Yule chill and the strains of faraway music sounded above the rattle and clop of our carriage.

It was dark on the nameless street. Dark and cold. Trees rose up, hulking masses of shadow that seemed to shuffle in place, their boughs swaying with a wind that didn’t reach the cab. If there were homes behind the line of trees, they shone no light at their windows, no lamps at their doors.

I can only spare you from the very worst, said Stitches, her face bent low, her hands moving inside her sleeves. Beware the sights, the sounds. Many bring madness. The Corpsemaster’s absence means some may ignore our right to safe passage as her guests.

Evis cussed softly.

“Never thought I’d actually miss the old spook.” I discovered a silver flask of good whiskey in my coat’s breast pocket and proffered it forth. “Evis? Miss?”

“Might as well,” said Evis.

Another time.

Lights began to play in the trees, offering glimpses of movement. I saw silvery wings, a flash of bare female leg, and heard laughter on the wind.

“Come and play,” said the voices. “Come out, come out, join us for the night!”

Evis took a long draw at my flask. I did the same. Pale hands reached down from the black boughs, curling their fingers in invitation.

“We know you, Markhat, the finder,” said a voice.

“We have watched you walk,” said another.

Silence, lest I burn thee with fire.

The leaves rustled, and we were alone.

Stitches waggled a finger at me in warning. Her fingernail was black, and I hoped it was painted that way.

“Should have brought cards,” opined Evis.

“Should have brought an army.”

“We did. Let her work. I’m going to close my eyes and take a nap. You might try the same.”

The twin glints in his white halfdead eyes vanished when he closed them.

I pulled my hat down and stared at my shoes and tried with no success to ignore the voices that called out my name.

I had to shake my halfdead friend awake. One doesn’t wake a halfdead without some risk, but Evis just gifted me with a toothy yawn followed by a lopsided grin.

We have arrived.

“Resistance?”

Nothing of any significance.

“Any sign of our host?”

None whatsoever. The dwelling appears to be unoccupied, although a number of potent spells are still present and functional.

I rubbed my hands together to warm them. The air bore a deep winter chill, though summer still held sway on the other side of Portend Street. “Are we being watched?” My words were accompanied by puffs of steam.

Naturally. I suspect there are many hereabouts who are also curious about the Corpsemaster’s status. I believe that may be why we were allowed to arrive without facing serious opposition.

“Your middle name isn’t Sunshine, is it?”

“Markhat. Not the time or the place. So what’s the plan, Stitches? Walk up and knock?”

She shrugged beneath her robes.

In essence, yes. I will go first. If you have weapons, keep them at the ready.

I had a knife in my boot and brass knuckles in my pocket. Evis had insisted we leave the guns behind. I take it they don’t care much for guns in the magic part of town. “And how will that help?”

She looked right at me, and I caught the ghost of a tortured grin on her tight-sewn lips.

You’ll feel better about dying if you don’t die empty-handed.

“Hilarious. I’m going to write that down. And people say sorcerers lack a sense of humor.”

Evis tired of making frantic shushing motions and opened his door with a sigh. Stitches followed him out, and I made it a threesome. Our driver, who looked decidedly worried despite the glowing long sword in his grasp, glanced down and acknowledged us with a brief nod.

Eyes and ears open, gentlemen, said Stitches. She pushed back her hood, did something to the back of her head, and long black hair fell down past her shoulders.

She marched down the short stone walk to the Corpsemaster’s big black door. Evis and I followed, trotting to keep up, and despite her short frame and our longer legs, she reached the stoop first.

Just like that, Stitches reached out and knocked. One, two, three.

It is I, Corpsemaster. Stitches. And two others known to you. We come out of concern. May we be admitted?

Silence. The voices in the wind fell quiet. After a moment, even the wind fell still.

I wondered how many ears and eyes were trained on us, and I pushed the thought aside before I could consider just who and what such ears and eyes might be attached to.

“Seems the Corpsemaster is occupied,” whispered Evis. “The door?”

Stitches reached out again, and her tiny hand fell on the latch. I saw the glint of her key vanish into the ancient iron lock.

It clicked. Stitches pushed and the door swung inward into an absolute darkness.

Stitches stepped inside and vanished. Evis turned to me, shrugged, and did the same.

“Last one in is a rotten egg,” I muttered, and I slipped my fingers through my useless brass knuckles and followed them both into the dark.

Chapter Four

The door slammed shut behind us. I will not compare the sound to that of the sealing of a tomb, because I’ve never heard such, but that’s what it sounded like.

We are alive. Surprising. Gentlemen, shield your eyes.

I did not shield my eyes and was thus treated to a sudden wash of furious bright light that spilled from Stitches’s raised right hand and filled the room with a noonday glare.

Evis covered his eyes with his hand while he fumbled for his dark-lensed spectacles. I blinked, cussed, and wound up tripping before going to one knee.

My hand plunged into something dry and fragile. Cloth tore. Sticks make dry cracking noises. By the time my eyes cleared, I knew the sticks weren’t sticks but ribs, and that I’d tripped on a prostrate corpse right in the old spook’s fancy front room.

Evis yanked me to my feet. I brushed bits of a dead man off my sleeve.

“Maid’s day off,” said Evis.

There were bodies all around us. Two slumped on wooden chairs. The rest, nine in all, were strewn across the floor.

Stitches prowled among them, waggling her fingers and muttering. Her long black hair flowed about her as though in the grip of a wind, or suspended below perfectly clear water.

The dead were still. Hair still clung to fleshless skulls. Dry, empty eye sockets regarded us without fear or malice. Their clothes were tattered and stained where fluids had left dark smears.

Evis nudged one with the toe of his boot. It failed to rise up and smite him.

The Corpsemaster’s household staff, I believe. I see no signs of violence.

“Looks like they just fell over,” I said. “Any lingering signs that they might get up again, maybe take exception to our visit?”

None. These are mere remains. Whatever once animated them is departed.

Evis made his way to the door set at the other end of the room and tried the latch.

“Locked,” he said. “Any reason we need to linger here, Stitches?”

The sorceress turned, hands upraised, hair floating about her head as if she were falling feet-first down a chasm. She made two full turns, strange lights playing about her black-nailed fingers, her jaw working behind those sewn, bloody lips.

No. There is simply nothing here. Or, perhaps more precisely, there is nothing present my own skills are capable of detecting.

Evis nodded, reached into his pocket and produced his own key. “Never thought I’d actually use this thing. Wish me luck.”

He shoved the key into the lock and turned it before I could speak. Again, the door swung open, revealing nothing but darkness behind it.

Evis stuck his fool head through before Stitches, despite her diminutive size, grabbed his collar and hauled him back.

I will go first, Mr. Prestley. Need I remind you in whose home we are?

Evis grinned and made a grand sweeping motion toward the half-open door.

“After you, sorceress. I was only having a quick peek.”

Impetuous youth. But, as the deed is done, what did you see?

“Bodies, like these. Twenty, maybe more. No movement.”

“Impetuous youth,” I said. “That’s a new one. The hall itself-was it long, straight, and did you see a pair of big iron-banded doors on the left, about halfway down?”

Evis nodded an affirmative.

I sighed. “That’s the kitchen. We’ll be needing my key soon.”

Something sparked and flashed in the air around Stitches. Her hair went wild, standing out in every direction, most of it trying to aim itself at a moving spot that seemed to play along the walls around us.

We must hurry. A crowd is gathering beyond the Corpsemaster’s ward spells. Some within it are applying certain pressures to the wards.

“Will they hold?”

I cannot say. Haste is our best ally.

And with that, she was through the door, casting the fierce light of day about her. The kitchen was cold and dark and empty. There were no bodies. There was an empty teakettle on a stove, a cup in the sink, a plain wooden chair pushed back from the Corpsemaster’s monstrous oak table.

Something in the tableau stirred a memory. My last sight of my own mother’s kitchen. Her favorite cup in the sink, her favorite chair pushed back. Both waiting for their mistress to return. Both waiting in vain because she was gone and never coming home again.

Stitches poked here and prodded there, playing her strange lights throughout the room, sending glowing orbs soaring before they returned to her, whispering and flashing.

Nothing, she said. Old magic, yes, but old magic steadily failing.

“The last door isn’t far,” I said, gripping my key. I was ready to wade through corpses stacked knee-high if doing so would get me away from that lone cup and that angled chair. “Leave here and take a left. Hidden door by a lamp. Up a secret stair.”

Stitches regarded me with eyes that wept blood around the threads which held them shut.

And she told you this room was a means of escape?

“That’s what she said. If Rannit fell. If all hope was lost.”

Interesting. Shall we proceed?

Without waiting for an answer, she swept through the kitchen’s only door, a parade of darting lights in her wake. Evis and I followed, stepping over fallen bodies as we entered the hall.

Something like thunder rumbled and the Corpsemaster’s old house shook. Stitches halted and loosed a bolt of baby lightning that arced up through the ceiling before exploding with enough force to send down a rain of dust and leave Evis and I half-deaf.

I never liked any of those assholes. Cover your ears.

We did, and the bolt she threw this time dwarfed the first and knocked the breath right out of me. A portion of the ceiling collapsed, spilling dry corpses in a heap to the floor and revealing a disturbing patch of sky in which the stars spun and whirled as if battered by rushing waters.

Evis pushed his dark spectacles up on his nose. “So much for subtlety,” he muttered.

Stitches shrugged and sauntered ahead. Evis and I picked our way through the new pile of corpses and I, for one, was glad to lose sight of that moving, unsettled sky.

I found the lamp. It had been burning when I saw it last. Now it merely sputtered, the white mageflame reduced to little more than a spark. Stitches regarded it silently for a moment before turning her ruined face to me.

“Like this,” I said, grabbing the lamp and twisting it clockwise.

A section of solid granite wall opened, pulled back without sound or fuss. Stitches cast her bevy of flying lights into the darkness, and we saw the stairs leading up and the mummified body heaped at the bottom.

“The door at the top is locked. I’ve got the key. Might as well go first.”

As you wish. I sense no overtly hostile magics in your path.

I clambered up the stairs, careful not to step in the dead man’s dusty remains. We gathered on the top landing.

I put my key back in my pocket. Evis whistled. Stitches waved her hands about and sent her pet lights flying to and fro about us.

The door was gone. The massive iron hinges remained, though they were drooped and warped from the heat that had consumed the wooden door.

“If memory serves, that door was nearly a foot thick.”

“Someone wasn’t satisfied with just a knock.” Evis peered past the door and into the shadows lurking inside. “I see something moving, maybe twenty feet in.”

Amazing, said Stitches. Awe filled her not-words. Tarry, gentlemen. This needs study.

So we tarried. By squinting, I convinced myself I too could see hints of motion in the dark. The motion suggested I was seeing the top portion of a monstrous wheel of some sort, turning quickly and without any sound.

I’m not sure how long we stood there. My knees went stiff. Evis leaned against the wall and to this day, I believe he took a short nap. More thunders grumbled in the distance, though none was so intense as to rain down dust or disturb Stitches.

I pondered the ruined hinges and finally decided it would take between three and four casks of the Corpsemaster’s finest gunpowder to blow down her door. That, or a single slouching wand-waver with a spell and a grudge.

I found myself hoping the Corpsemaster hadn’t been behind the door when it was breached. Anything hot enough to melt iron and so thoroughly consume such a quantity of oak would have made mere ashes of flesh and bone.

Stitches lowered her hands.

We may enter. Take care and remain close. There is a powerful magic at work nearby.

She stepped through the ruined door and we did the same, flanking her, staying one step behind.

She did something and the room filled with light. At the same time, the hint of motion I’d seen sprang into perfect clarity.

Evis’s jaw dropped just as far as mine.

The room itself was just a room. Stone walls. Same for the floor and the ceiling. There used to be a magelamp on a chain suspended from the center of the ceiling. Now the chains hung empty and were fused together in a lump.

But against the far wall, magic wheeled and spun.

Stay where you are, warned Stitches.

Take a wheel. Make it three stories tall. Taller. Then fill it with spokes made of moonlight.

Set entire worlds in the spaces between spokes. Give the whole works a spin, and step back to see what you hath wrought.

Snow-capped mountains.

flash

Deep forest, sunlight slanting down through green, green boughs.

flash

Mermaids singing on spray-soaked stones.

flash

Hayfield gleaming in the sun.

flash

Mirror-smooth lake and sandy shore.

Evis spoke first. “Think she’s somewhere in there?”

Stitches raised her arms. A scurrying army of red-skinned imps-complete with tiny red horns and barbed crimson tails-fell from the air about her, converged on the spinning wheel of worlds, and began leaping into the spaces between the spokes.

I suspect not, said Stitches. But a few moments will either confirm or dispute my suspicions.

An imp sat down on the toe of my boot. I kicked it off, and it shook its fist at me and squeaked in indignation before reluctantly joining its brethren in their rush toward the wheel.

It is as I feared. The spellwork is damaged. Persons who attempt to use it will be dispersed across a number of worlds.

“Dammit. Can you tell who used it last?”

I can only determine that it has seen no significant discharge of arcane energies.

“Dumbed down for the lay folk, please?”

The Corpsemaster has not passed this way.

“I can’t picture her letting anyone wreck her house and walk away unscathed,” Evis said. “Looks like we’ll have to get used to the idea that she’s gone.”

“I’m going to miss the old spook.” No sooner had I spoken the words that I realized what a poor epitaph they made. “She stayed her hand when killing was the easy way. She kept her word when she didn’t have to. She made me a biscuit once. It was awful but I appreciate the effort.”

“Amen.” Evis faced Stitches. “Is there anything to be gained with further exploration? Anything we can safely remove and return to the House?”

Stitches turned in circles briefly as her hair floated about her head.

Regrettably, no. We are not the first to enter this place. The items we might have safely removed are gone and the ones which remain are far beyond my skills. Worse, I can detect three distinct structural spells about to fail due to pressures from without.

A groaning from the ceiling and a sudden pitching of the floor punctuated her words.

“Time to go, then. Markhat. Your hat.”

“What?”

Stitches whirled and headed for the door. Dust drifted down from the ceiling as the bones of the house groaned and shifted.

I reached up and something slapped my hand. I fell into place behind Evis and yanked my hat off to find a red-skinned imp perched atop it, hanging on with both little red claws and little red tail.

The floor tilted. The imp looked up at me, eyes wide, and squeaked something unintelligible. “Stay put or get stomped,” I said, and I pulled my hat down tight on my head and charged down the steps while the Corpsemaster’s house fell apart around me.

I made it out the Corpsemaster’s front door, my hat, my imp, and my head intact. Evis emerged complaining of the dust on his good black cloak. Stitches loosed half a dozen bolts of lightning into the sky and ran for the carriage, her hands trailing smoke.

The ground heaved. Behind us, the Corpsemaster’s home sank a dozen feet into the ground. Roof tiles flew, exploding on the street and sending shards of black slate whizzing through the air like a sleet of stones.

The carriage was in motion as I caught hold and dived inside. Evis hauled me in, Stitches cast a soft aura over us, and we sped off into the night as the old spook’s house vanished down into the earth.

I panted and puffed and mopped sweat. Stitches mumbled to her hands and tended to her tame flying lights. Evis leaned back and grinned, not even breathing hard.

“That wasn’t as bad as I expected.”

We are hardly out of the proverbial woods, said Stitches. The collapse of the house has attracted quite a few onlookers.

“Any of them coming after us?”

Stitches was silent for a long time while the driver exhorted his ponies to make haste.

No. They seem more interested in the ruin of the house. I gather the lower levels housed a few items of particular interest to certain esoteric tastes.

“Lucky for us,” I said.

A tiny voice above my head mimicked my words, though I believe it exaggerated the breathlessness thereof.

Evis laughed. “Looky, looky. Markhat picked up another stray. What’s the Missus going to say, old friend? You can’t tie a ribbon around that and call it a kitten.”

I felt a scampering on my hat, and then tiny claws climbed carefully down my ear before settling on my shoulder. I felt its tail drape itself loosely around my neck, and it chittered something brief and harsh.

“I don’t think he likes you, Mr. Prestley,” I said. “You don’t, do you, Mr. Simmons?”

“Mr. Simmons,” it chanted. “Mr. Simmons Mr. Simmons Mr. Simmons!”

I shall send it back whence it came, finder.

The imp shrieked and clung to my neck.

“Is it dangerous? Venomous? Does it drink blood, eat flesh, anything of that sort?”

It is a construct, formed from a malleable elemental substance which resides in a convenient parallel-

“Public school, remember? Dumb it down, please.”

It is probably harmless.

“Then forget it. Get us out of here instead. Mr. Simmons can stay as long as he behaves himself. You get that, Mr. Simmons?”

The imp snapped to faux attention and threw me a salute.

Evis chuckled and reached into his pocket for more cigars. Stitches mumbled spells behind her sewn, bloody lips.

Mr. Simmons reached out and lit our cigars with a flame he conjured at the tip of his barbed red tail.

All in all, it was an interesting night.

We rolled up in front of Avalante just after midnight, despite having fled the fall of the Corpsemaster’s home well after that hour. Which may be why common folk avoid the sorcerer’s district in droves. You never know what tricks Time is going to play once you cross Portend Street.

Stitches had been slumped over, uncommunicative and bleeding from eyes and lips since we left the magic part of town. I’d wanted to check for a pulse. Evis had suggested that even touching a wounded, friendly wand-waver was a good way to wind up being forever known as Markhat One Hand.

She’d lolled and hung like a rag doll when a half-dozen Avalante halfdead gently eased her out of the carriage and into a fancy copper box that whirred and clanked and exhaled gouts of steam once the lid was closed.

“Hell if I know,” replied Evis to the question I hadn’t spoken. “Let’s go have a beer.”

And so we did.

“Who was Mr. Simmons?”

We were seated in the dark confines of Evis’s sprawling office. The usual trinkets glowed and moved in the glass-covered display cases behind his desk.

I took a long drink of his good dark beer before answering.

“He was the landlord when I was a kid. Mom called him ‘that old devil.’ We used to draw pictures of him with horns and slip the paper under his door.” I chuckled at the memory of the old man bursting out into the hall, broom held high, cursing and swatting at us as we kids scattered.

He’d never managed to land a blow. Thinking back, I realized he’d never meant to.

The smaller, redder Mr. Simmons had leaped from my hat and vanished into the night the instant we’d reached the safety of Avalante’s curb. He’d not even waved goodbye.

“I don’t think we’ll be seeing the Corpsemaster again.” I emptied my glass and Evis refilled it. “Looks like she’d have put in an appearance, if she could-what with her House being looted and falling.”

“Looks like.” Evis pondered the shadows over my right shoulder. “Quite a blow for Avalante.”

“You’ll soon have the Regent in your pocket. That ought to more than make up for the loss.”

“I hope so. Speaking of which, Gertriss is making the trip to Bel Loit too.”

I’d suspected as much. Evis toyed with his glass and didn’t elaborate.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were nervous, Mr. Prestley. Worried I might raise some sort of objection to your choice of female company?”

He shrugged. “More worried you’d have something to say about her taste in men.”

Aha, I said to myself. Confirmation at last.

“For what it’s worth, Evis, I think she’s got excellent taste. You have my blessing. I shall, of course, expect a sizable dowry.”

“I wasn’t joking, Markhat.”

I downed my beer. “Neither was I. If you just have to find something to worry about, there’s always Mama and her plainspoken country mouth. But not me. Never me.”

He let the breath he’d been holding escape. He might have spoken, but someone knocked, and a soft voice reminded him of a meeting in five minutes.

“You can stay,” said Evis, motioning toward the box of cigars on his right.

I stood. “I’m a married man now. Best be getting home. Darla will be worried.”

Evis stood and extended his bare hand to shake. He never does that.

“Thank you,” he said.

Yes. His hand was cold. Cold as a corpse. And maybe he has a mouthful of fangs, and maybe his eyes look like dirty marbles.

If Mama couldn’t see any further than that, then maybe she needed to put away her fortune cards and take up knitting.

Avalante supplied my ride home. The clocks might have pointed toward midnight, but by my own estimation we’d left just after Curfew, and we’d spent at least six hours getting into and out of the Corpsemaster’s doomed house. I spent a good two minutes pondering the philosophical and metaphysical ramifications of the lost time before nodding off to sleep myself.

I was awakened when my borrowed carriage rolled to an abrupt halt. Still groggy, I pushed up my hat and put my hand on the latch when I heard the driver shout and my door swung open on its own.

“You’re Markhat,” said a towering slab of a man, who leaned in and dared shove a lantern in my face. “Get out.”

Clever devil that I am, I nodded, put my hand on the door latch behind me, and sprang ass-first through it, away from the large man and his favorite lantern.

I whirled.

“Smart one,” said the man with the lantern, who rounded the rear of the carriage. The yellow lamp lit his face and rendered his grin demonic. “Knew you’d try that.”

The four stalwart Watchmen who ringed me in muttered and nodded, truncheons at the ready.

A fifth held an old Army issue Mauser crossbow on my driver, who sat wide-eyed and deadly still.

“You take that crossbow off my driver, bluecap, or I’m going to shove it so far up your ass you can use the bolt for a toothpick.”

“No need for that, Moris.” The big man spoke. Moris lowered the crossbow with the air of a man who was disappointed at being told he couldn’t shoot a law-abiding stranger.

“Let’s try this again,” said the giant, after giving Moris a good glare. “You’re Markhat. The finder from Cambrit. That right?”

“Nope. My name is Flocart. Of Flocart, Simmons, and Vault, attorneys at law. Which you’ll need, if pointing crossbows at innocent carriage drivers is becoming a habit.”

His face reddened a bit in the lamplight.

“I know who you are.”

“So why ask? You’re doing this all wrong. The Watch doesn’t ask. They accuse. So tell me, Watchman, what is it I’m accused of?”

“My name is Captain Holder. Watch Captain Holder.” He emphasized the Watch.

“What a coincidence. I’m a Captain too. Captain Markhat, they call me, hero of the Battle of Rannit. Still, you should probably salute me, because-”

I never got a chance to finish. Watch Captain Holder nodded to the four blue-capped Watchmen surrounding me, and I was hustled into a plain, none-too-clean Watch tallbox and whisked downtown while my velvet-covered Avalante carriage and furious driver were shooed away into the night.

Chapter Five

By the time my new friend at the Watch was done with me, the morning sun was peeping through the trees, the sidewalks were filling with yawning pedestrians, and my porch was occupied by worried wives.

Darla watched me haul my weary bones out of the cab. Her arms were crossed tight over her chest. She was dressed and ready for work and I wondered if she’d slept at all.

I was opening the gate in our white picket fence before I noticed Buttercup. She was standing on our roof right above Darla, her tiny little banshee arms crossed over her chest and her right foot tapping in perfect imitation of my betrothed.

“Good morning, ladies,” I said, doffing my hat and hoping none of the neighbors was watching my roof. “Sorry I’m late.”

Darla catches on fast. “Shoo,” she said with a glance at the ceiling. “Run along home, honey. Before Mama comes looking.”

Buttercup lifted both hands to her mouth in mock terror before twirling and vanishing.

I reached the three steps that led up to our porch and collapsed on my butt. Darla sat beside me. She smelled of soap and perfume and a fancy new shampoo.

“How bad was it?”

I took off my hat and laid it beside me.

“Bad enough. No sign of you know who. The whole place fell in as we left.”

Darla was silent.

“That’s not even the worst part.”

“What could be worse than-well. That?”

“The Watch. I got picked up on the way home. New man, named Holder. Kept on and on about the woman who tried to stick me.”

Darla bristled.

“They took you downtown?”

“To the Old Ruth, no less. I think Holder was trying to shake me up.”

“You show him your Avalante pin?”

“He wasn’t impressed. That worries me. Need to talk to Evis.”

“You need a couple of hours of sleep, husband of mine. You can barely keep your eyes open.” She kissed me on my cheek and smoothed back my hair. “You look exhausted. I’ll leave breakfast in the oven. Scoot or I’ll have Buttercup fetch Mama and that black tea she calls her restorative.”

I groaned and found my feet. “Anything but that.”

She laughed and hugged me, brief but fierce. She walked across the porch and into our house, leaving our door open behind her.

I made it to the bedroom and wound up sleeping in my coat. I dreamed of riding in a carriage pulled by little red imps while phantasmal Watchmen shouted down rude questions from the trees.

Like any hard-working entrepreneur, I rose at the crack of noon. I gobbled down the breakfast Darla left, and was well on my way toward leaving my bathtub and perhaps selecting a dressing gown when a familiar knock sounded at my door.

“Boy, you in there?”

I cussed and scrambled out of the tub and sent soapy water sloshing all over Darla’s new floor tiles.

“Hold on, Mama, I’m coming.” I wasn’t sure she heard so I charged into the hall, dripping on everything, and shouted it again.

Mama heard and replied with something unintelligible. I watched her short fat shadow seat itself in one of our three rocking chairs, and I hurried back to the bathroom to get dried, combed, and dressed.

“It’s about damned time,” said Mama when I finally stuck my well-coiffed head out my door. She rose from the chair, scowling. “I don’t know what to think of folks sleepin’ away half the day when they got a fancy new house to pay for.”

“Good to see you too, Mama.”

She snorted and trundled inside.

Our house isn’t fancy, despite what certain busybody soothsayers claim. In the front room, there is a brown couch and a pair of comfy tan chairs, all aimed at the fireplace. There’s a low table situated so people have a place to put teacups or books. There’s a bookcase beneath the south window that opens to the porch, and doors to the kitchen and the hall on the east and north walls, respectively. The floors are dark-stained oak and a big red Balptist prayer-circle rug-a wedding present from a former client-keeps bare feet toasty warm in the winter.

Mama stopped just inside my doorway and took it all in. Then her hand darted in her battered black lace handbag and when it darted out again she held a woeful dried barn owl.

“Peace and contentment within these walls,” said Mama. “Let those who would enter and do mischief meet swift misfortune.”

Her owl shed dust and feathers but she hid it away again before I could voice a complaint.

“Brung you something, boy,” she said. Again, she fumbled in her bag.

“If it’s a mummified crow we’ve already got one.”

“Hush.” A shiny new horseshoe appeared in her hand. “I hexed it. Hexed it good. You set it right there on yonder mantel, open end up, you hear?”

She thrust it toward me. I shrugged, glad it wasn’t a ring of sun-dried snakes or some other homespun backwoods monstrosity, and placed it as she bade.

Mama nodded in approval before allowing herself a gap-toothed smile. “Well, are you goin’ to offer me a seat and some coffee or not, boy?”

I made a sweeping motion toward my many seating options. “Make yourself at home, Mama. I’ll go start the coffee.”

Mama sat, folded her hands in her lap, and promptly began to snore.

“I reckon you and the missus have got a right nice home,” said Mama after noisily draining her third cup of my coffee.

“Thank you.” I refilled her cup with the last of the pot. “Darla will be glad you came.”

Mama nodded. “Well, to tell truth, this ain’t the first time I been here. Just ain’t knocked before on account of the hour.”

“Do tell.”

Mama sighed. “Buttercup. She took to sneakin’ out at night when she thinks I’m sleepin’. Ain’t that something? She ain’t even human, but acts like a strong-headed child all the same.”

I groaned.

“Buttercup is coming here after Curfew?”

“Not every night, boy. Every other, maybe. Has been for ‘bout two weeks. I tried keepin’ her in, boy, you know I tried. But it don’t do no good to nail doors shut when the little devil can magic herself right through ‘em.”

I hadn’t heard a thing. No telltale pitter-patter of little bare banshee feet on the roof. I’d not seen so much as a shadow pass my window.

Oh, I knew she followed Darla home at lunch if Mama was napping, but her daytime jaunts were rare and getting less frequent. In daylight she could pass for just another child. But after dark on empty streets?

“This isn’t good.”

“I know it ain’t, boy. I ain’t so much worried about Buttercup herself. I reckon even half a dozen vampires couldn’t catch her, much less put a mark on her. But it won’t do to get stories started about her. ‘Specially not stories that leads to you, what with that high-and-mighty wand-waver friend o’ yours dead and gone.”

“You’ve heard that too?”

Mama scowled. “I reckon I damn well has. I took my jars down, boy, I didn’t plug my ears. I hear the whispers. I listen real hard when people whisper, boy.” She shook a finger at me. “You ought to do the same.”

“I pay your niece to do all my listening for me, Mama. These days I just sleep late and let unpaid bills pile up on the floor.”

“I see you ain’t lost that smart mouth to sloth yet.” Mama rose. “I thank you for the coffee and the hospitality.”

I stood too. “You’re always welcome here, Mama. Late hour or not. You knock anytime, you hear?”

“I hear.”

“Darla’s going to get her feelings hurt if you don’t come back for a visit when she’s home.”

“I reckon I’ll be passing this way around suppertime tomorrow, if’n that suits.”

“It suits.”

Mama turned and started for the door.

“She ain’t playin’ when she comes here at night,” said Mama, not turning. “She floats. Shines a bit too, like a half-moon.”

I’d seen Buttercup do that once, back when I’d first laid eyes on her deep in the woods south of Rannit. The memory of it ran icicles down my spine.

“Maybe it don’t mean nothin’, boy. Maybe she’s just seein’ where you went.” Mama put her hand on my doorknob and turned it. “But she is what she is. So you be extra careful, you hear? Extra careful.”

And then she stomped across my threshold and off my porch and down the three steps to the walk and was gone. I peeked through the window and watched her march away down the sidewalk, her heavy boots clomp-clomping steadily toward home.

I scribbled Darla a note letting her know Mama paid us a visit and was planning another for the following evening. Darla would insist on providing a feast, which was fine by me. I’m not ashamed to say I’d missed the old charlatan since moving out of my office on Cambrit.

I spent another few moments secreting various small instruments of mayhem on my well-dressed person. Then I ventured out in Mama’s wake, humming a happy tune between spates of yawning.

I wandered on foot for a bit just to see if the inquisitive Captain Holder was wasting the Regent’s coin by hiding Watchmen in my shrubs. He wasn’t, or if he was, he was too good to spot. So after a half-dozen blocks of ambling, I hailed a cab and settled in for the short ride west to Cambrit.

On a whim, I’d told the cabbie to drop me at the barbershop a block from my place. When I saw the tall, grim-faced man idling in the shade of old Mr. Bull’s meager stoop, I was glad I added that block. The idling man wasn’t wearing Watch blues. No, he had on a grey topcoat and a newish grey hat and black pants that more or less fit. He’d have been hard to spot in a crowd, but standing there on Cambrit all by himself in his scuffed, black Watch brogans he might as well have been in uniform.

I got out at the barbershop and ambled in and left by the back door after a nod to Curtis the barber. From there I made my way to the back door of my neighbors the Arwheat brothers, and after a short visit with them I headed to a middling fancy eatery downtown called the Brickworks.

Along the way I made another stop in an alley I won’t name. I counted a certain number of bricks up and a certain number across, and I pulled out the loose one and left a note behind it.

Gertriss and I have ways of keeping in touch, you see.

That done, I dined. I made sure to take a table in the middle of the place, I called my waiter by name, and surprised him with a generous tip. Same for the wine steward, the maitre d', the busboy, and the doorman. In a fit of purely spontaneous generosity, I also bought a round of drinks for the bar and thus made a few new friends in the banking and haberdashery industries.

It was mid-afternoon by the time I made my way back to Cambrit. Mr. Bull’s stoop was empty aside from old Mr. Bull himself, who was worrying a wet section of sidewalk with his ancient, nearly strawless broom.

He responded to my wave and cheery “hello” with a bout of cackling. I unlocked my fancy new door and ushered a petulant Three-leg Cat inside. Then I waited for callers.

I didn’t wait long. Evis showed in a half-hour, swathed in black silk, his dead eyes shielded from the daylight by thick black spectacles. I got little more than grunts from him while he settled into a chair he’d pushed to the back, out of the light.

We smoked cigars in silence while traffic rattled past outside. By the time an iron-wheeled Watch tallboy rattled to the curb, we’d filled my office with enough thick grey smoke to actually make seeing out the door’s peep window impossible.

A meaty fist struck my door. “Open for the Watch!” shouted my new friend Captain Holder. “Open or we’ll break it down.”

Evis stubbed out his cigar and folded back into the shadows. I rose and unlocked my door, then opened it wide before stepping back out of yanking distance.

Captain Holder marched in, hand on his sword hilt, face beet red around eyes already going teary from the cigar smoke.

“What brings you here, Captain?” Carelessly, I puffed smoke directly into his face. “Care for a Lowland Sweet?”

That’s when Captain Holder, an officer of the law and a high-ranking Watchman, dared lay hands on me-a law-abiding citizen who did nothing but exhibit a generous nature concerning his excellent tobacco.

Evis moved, a silent shadow leaving brief wakes in the smoke.

Slam went my door, plunging my office into darkness.

Snick went the Captain’s Watch-issue shortsword as it was snatched from its scabbard.

Thunk went the blade as Evis buried the tip of it in my desk before returning to his seat and once again wrapping himself in silk and shadow.

The Captain gaped, his sword hand closing on air.

“I have half a dozen men right outside.”

“Only half a dozen?” I sniffed and looked down my nose. “I’d have thought a desperate criminal such as myself would have demanded a full dozen, at least.”

He wasn’t listening. Instead, he backed toward my door, his eyes on Evis, and then he yanked it open and bellowed through it.

“Your men were called to attend pressing matters elsewhere, Captain Holder,” said Evis from the dark. “Close the door. You are in no danger. But we do need to have a chat.”

I would have bet even money on the Captain bolting. But after a moment of staring out into the empty street, he straightened, uttered a single brief curse word, turned to face us, and closed the door.

“You’ve had a bad morning, Captain,” I said. I strolled around my desk and pointed to the empty client’s chair. “But it doesn’t need to get any worse. Have a seat. Let’s talk this out like gentlemen.”

He glared but yanked the chair back and sat.

“You dumped a bucket of shit on a Watchman,” he said, his voice still rough with rage. “I know all about you, Markhat. You’ve been running roughshod over the Watch for years. I’m here to tell you you’ve gone too far this time. I’m charging you with assault on an officer of the law.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Charging me? With assault? Good thing my legal counsel is present, then. Captain Holder, meet Mr. Evis Prestley, of House Avalante. I believe you’ve heard the name.”

“I know it.”

I leaned back and laced my fingers together behind my head. “Assault, you say? Mr. Prestley. Have I, to your knowledge, assaulted any Watchmen recently?”

“Why no, Mr. Markhat, I don’t believe you have.”

The good Captain repeated his curse word. “You dumped a bucket of shit on my man outside. I can’t hang you for that but I can damned well throw you in the Old Ruth for a week or three.” He made as if to rise.

Evis appeared by my side, his dead-pale face just touched by the sun.

“And you can prove my client was involved, can you, Captain?”

“It was him. You know it and I know it.”

Evis shook his head and made tsk-tsk noises. “At what time did this alleged assault by excrement occur, Captain? As you have noted the complainant is a Watchman, I assume he was able to provide such details in his official report?”

“Ten of noon,” growled the Captain, his beefy right hand clutching his Watch-issue handcuffs. “You’re wasting your time. He’s coming with me.”

“Ten of noon,” said Evis. “Well. I can produce no fewer than two dozen prominent citizens of Rannit who will gladly swear they were dining with Mr. Markhat at the Brickworks between eleven and half-past one, Captain Holder. Remind me of the names, Mr. Markhat.”

“Certainly. Tavis Green, of the Tavis Greens, was there. We enjoyed a bottle of Fitch together. Oh, and Markum Sate, and Corliss Poole, and that nephew of the Regent’s chief of staff, Malcom Slater.”

I trailed off and watched a vein in Holder’s forehead bulge and pulse.

“You spoke of a waste of time, Captain. Indeed, that is what incarcerating my client will yield you. Time and trouble. I assure you, Avalante will take an immediate and active interest in the matter.”

“Might as well put the bracelets away,” I said. “Maybe one day I’ll slip up and you can clap them on me. But that isn’t today, Captain, and you know it.”

Ten breaths. That’s what it took for Holder to work out the truth behind my words. But work it out he did, and the cuffs went back in his pocket.

“I won’t forget this,” he said after a time. “Nobody dumps chamber-pots on my Watch officers. Nobody.”

I shrugged. “Good for you. Now then. Being completely unaware you had a man watching my door, I find myself suddenly compelled to ask why you’d do such a thing. So. Why?”

“Because a woman is dead and you killed her, that’s why.”

Evis waggled a taloned finger at the Captain’s nose. “My client acted in self-defense during an unprovoked attack by a deranged stranger,” he said. “Even the Watch concurs.”

“I think your client knows exactly who the dead woman was and why she ended up cut in half by a beer-wagon.”

“If I knew who she was, Captain, I’d tell you. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because, as usual, you’re mixed up in something,” said the Captain. “Think you’re above the law, don’t you, Markhat?”

“We don’t see enough law in this part of town to think ourselves above it.” I put my hands on my desk and leaned close. The Captain needed a bath. “Look. I’m not lying. I don’t know who she was or why she came at me. There wasn’t time to ask. But why do you care? The dead wagons haul bodies out of alleys every morning. Nobody asks. What makes this woman so special the Watch is pestering me about her?”

“You’re telling me you don’t know her.”

“I’m telling you I don’t.”

“What happens if I stand up and try to walk out of here, Markhat? You going to turn your vampire loose on me?”

I stood. “Beat it,” I said. “Get out and stay out until you calm down enough to talk sense. Try and snag me again, and you can explain yourself to the Corpsemaster. That clear enough for you?”

“Corpsemaster is dead.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Why don’t you piss me off again and we’ll see?”

He stood. Evis watched but didn’t move.

“We’re not done here.”

“I beg to differ. Get out.”

He did, slamming my door behind him.

Evis glided back into the shadows, chuckling.

“Markhat. Did you really arrange for a Watchman to be bathed in excrement?”

“The Arwheats don’t much care for the Watch. I almost had to force their pay upon them.”

Evis shook his head. “They’ll not forget that. Not for a long time.”

“Good.” I put my hands back behind my head. “Something about that dead woman has the Watch nervous.”

“Indeed. Have you learned anything new about her?”

“Nothing. I was heading to the hotels downtown today to see if anyone fitting her description skipped a bill. Maybe she left something in her room with her name on it, along with a note detailing her dastardly plans.”

Evis nodded. “Still. A bucket of shit?” He shook his head. “As your attorney, I must admonish you against future use of night soil as a deterrent for loiterers.”

“As you say, counselor.”

Evis chuckled and produced fresh cigars.

A Lowland Sweet later, I was heading downtown to mingle with the upper classes.

I was dressed for it, too. Darla’s new hat sat rakishly atop my well-combed head. My coat was pressed and I smelled of a subtle cologne and even my socks were fine, upstanding examples of quietly tasteful footwear.

In light of my recent brief acquaintance with a knife-wielding maniac, I carried several less refined implements upon my person. Toadsticker hung openly at my side. Being a Captain of the guard allowed me to flaunt all but the most stringent of Rannit’s open carry laws.

I took a cab right to the shadow of the High House and stood directly under the Brass Bell when it clanged out two of the clock.

By the time it rang out three, I’d visited four of Rannit’s finest hotels and had half a dozen quiet conversations with desk clerks and concierges. Only one, the concierge at the Bedlam Towers, had the audacity to raise objections to Toadsticker, and he’d quickly swallowed them when he recognized my name.

As I said, being a Captain, however unwilling, in the Corpsemaster’s private army does confer certain favors.

But even my lofty rank couldn’t pry any information concerning small-framed, black-haired women out of the Bedlam Towers or anywhere else. I’d also offered to cover the woman’s bill if she left one unpaid.

No one nibbled at the bait.

My next stop was a pre-War monstrosity of soot-blacked granite called simply Orlin’s Inn. Word has it that Orlin’s is one of Rannit’s most haunted structures, and even in the bright afternoon sun and under a brilliant blue sky, Orlin’s manages to look shadowed and mysterious.

I dodged carriages and pedestrians and clambered up the worn thirteen steps that stretch from the street to the wide, tall doors. The Ogres flanking the entryway dipped their eyes to me in greeting, and I doffed my hat in return.

A human doorman held the door for me.

“Welcome to the Orlin,” he said. He was fat and fifty and bald but his smile was wide and possibly genuine.

“Thanks,” I said. I took off my hat as I crossed the threshold. “Say, maybe you can help me. I’m looking for a woman.”

His smile didn’t waver. “Not that kind of place.”

“Ha. She’s not that kind of woman, either. Twenty, maybe twenty-five. Smallish. Curly black hair. Fancy black dress, last time I saw her. Good teeth. Blue eyes. Ring any bells?”

A coin found its way into my hand. This happy accident was witnessed by my friend, the smiling doorman.

“Quiet, she was. Never got a name. Arrived three days ago. Haven’t seen her since.”

My coin found a new home. I bade my friend farewell and headed for the front desk, lest our conversation be noted as anything but a polite change of pleasantries by the somewhat less jolly-looking desk clerk.

The lobby was everything the Orlin’s exterior wasn’t. The floors were white marble all the way to the desk. There were chairs and low tables scattered about, plants in urns, and even a burbling fountain in the center. Tall, old windows managed to let in just enough light to keep the room from being gloomy. A huge hearth-no fire today-took up one wall. Four long couches faced it, ready to warm street-weary feet come winter and Rannit’s fickle snows.

The desk was a curving thing of oak and stone that took up another wall. Behind it stood a single clerk, whose sharp little eyes bore into the depths of my soul as I smiled and sauntered up.

“Does sir have a reservation?”

I didn’t let my smile drop even a little.

“Sir does, but I’m not due until tomorrow. I’m here a day early on party business.”

I spoke the last in a whisper, accompanied by a furtive glance around the room.

The clerk’s glare softened a bit. He took in the brand of the hat I laid casually on the counter and the cut of my jacket and the enticing aroma of my five-crown after-shave, and his glare softened even more.

“Party business, sir?”

I made frantic shushing noises. “For Heaven’s sake, man, keep it down. The Duchess will be furious if anyone spoils the surprise.”

“The Duchess?”

“Shush, man!” I leaned in close and continued in a whisper. “I assumed you of all people had been told!”

He reddened.

“Well, surely you’re in on it? How could you not be-you, the man in charge?”

He positively inflated with injured pride.

“Some people don’t see things that way, sir. I assure you, I’ve been kept quite in the dark.”

I shook my head and sighed. “Then you weren’t told that the Duchess is planning to surprise the Duke tomorrow, right here in the lobby?”

“No one has breathed a word, sir.”

“Unbelievable. Why, if I hadn’t arrived early…” I let my words trail off.

“Indeed, sir! The calamity! Now, how may I assist you?”

“I shall need to see the Duchess straightaway,” I said. “She usually travels under the name Chavel-by-Golance. Perhaps you can send a boy up with word that I am here?”

“Sir, I can assure you, we have no guest registered under that name.”

I snapped my fingers in a show of well-bred rage.

“She must be exercising even greater caution than usual,” I said. “I imagine she’s using another name. Gont de Lamon? Mrs. Notable of Plinker? Baroness Callowhapper?”

“Sir, no one of those names has ever been a guest here.”

“The Duchess is a striking woman. Petite, like all the dames of her line. Black hair, delicate features, blue eyes?”

The clerk’s face lit up with a sudden beaming smile.

“But of course, sir,” he said, his gaze moving past me over my left shoulder. “And here she is, right now!”

I turned.

And there she was. The same black hair, piled high and held tight. The same blue eyes gazing right into mine. The same wide smile, as if she’d just found something dear she’d lost long ago.

The knife in her slender small hands, though. The knife was not the same. This one was a plain backwoods hunting knife, its wicked blade honed to a deadly shine.

“Sir?”

Judging from his tone, I guessed the desk clerk had seen the knife and was beginning to realize that the woman was trouble-duchess or not.

I left my hat where it sat. I saw there to be more chairs and couches to my right, so that’s where I headed with commendable haste.

She followed, still smiling, quiet as a ghost but quick as a Troll. She gripped the dagger in her right hand and knew to keep it waist-high and moving back and forth.

Someone yelled. People scattered. Nervous laughter and snide advice broke out from the suddenly-crowded stairs.

“You shouldn’t have broken her heart, mister.”

“Don’t think flowers are gonna get you out of this one.”

“Call the Watch,” I yelled. I didn’t like the way that blade glimmered in the sun when she moved past a window. Something oily and wet was smeared all over the steel.

I put a table between us. She took hold of it with her free left hand and tossed it casually aside.

The laughter and snide commentary went silent as the mob made quickly for higher ground.

“I don’t even know who you are,” I said as I sought refuge behind a heavy couch. “I’ve always been told it’s rude to assault a stranger.”

She sent the couch sliding across the marble tiles as easily as she’d thrown the table and got close enough to stab.

I leaped away, my shoes clacking on the tile, my right sole nearly killing me by sliding. Toadsticker swung at my side and for an instant, I considered drawing him.

She kept coming. Dart, stab, dart, stab. I had plenty of chances to grab the wrist of her knife-hand but I knew she could nick me before I could wrest the knife away. There aren’t many poisons so deadly they can kill with a scratch, but there aren’t many identical, knife-wielding, smiling women either, so I opted for a series of dignified scampers around the lobby.

I made one complete circuit of the room. I was huffing and puffing and dripping sweat all over the Orlin’s fresh-mopped tiles. She wasn’t even winded, and not a single raven-black lock hung askew.

Worst of all, she was still smiling.

I unbuckled my belt. She lunged and stabbed. I spun and yanked and managed to drag Toadsticker’s scabbard free, and before she lunged again I whacked her hard on the right side of her temple with as much force as I could muster.

She lunged. I dodged.

I hit her again, using Toadsticker’s longer reach to avoid that venomous blade.

She didn’t even blink.

The big oak doors burst open, flooding the room with sunlight and a pair of huge Ogre silhouettes. I dropped Toadsticker and scabbard and ran manfully toward the Ogres, my smiling assassin close on my heels.

“Her knife is poisoned,” I yelled. A hairy Ogre arm swung up and out and I ducked, and she didn’t.

The Ogre’s blow sent her flying. I turned to watch, holding my empty hands up just in case a second Ogre blow was being considered.

She hit the far wall, landed on her feet, and came at me again, still smiling.

The Ogres exchanged low, wet growls.

“Mind the knife, boys,” I said. “Poisoned.”

One of the Ogres stepped into the burbling fountain, casually picked up a smooth, decorative chunk of white stone the size of a wheelbarrow, and hurled it directly into the smiling woman’s belly.

I heard bones crunch. She went down, coughed up a mouthful of blood, and came at me again, crawling this time.

The other Ogre ended her rampage with his boot, then extended to me his massive six-fingered Ogre hand and helped me to my feet.

The Watch whistles were nearly to the door. Curious onlookers, sensing the danger was past, crept back into the room, eyes widening at the sight of the corpse on the floor.

She was face down, for which I was glad. I’d seen all of that vacant smile I ever wanted to see. Blood was pooling beneath her, spreading across the clean white tiles like it had all the time in the world.

“Who was that?” someone said.

“What was that?” asked another.

The Ogres exchanged soft hoots and returned to their posts at the door. The Watch burst in, a dozen strong, swords drawn, crossbows at the ready.

“My name is Markhat,” I said before any of them spoke. I didn’t smile but I made sure they could see my hands. “This woman attacked me without warning or provocation. There were two dozen people present, and most of them are just out of sight on the stairs.”

“Shut your cake hole,” said the biggest of the blue-caps. He swung his crossbow around and kept it trained on my face. “Nobody moves. Nobody leaves. Nobody talks ’til I tell you to. Got that?”

“Got it.”

Cussing and stomping sounded from the back ranks of the Watchmen. I cussed a bit myself when I recognized the angry red face shoving its way through his fellows.

“Captain Holder. How good of you to drop by.”

“You.” The good captain befouled the Orlin’s premium flooring with spit and glared down at the expanding pool of blood.

“What is it with you and dead women, Markhat?”

“It gets better, Captain. Roll her over. You won’t believe me if I tell it, so see for yourself.”

He did.

He cussed some more while his Watchmen tried to force a confession out of me through the sheer intensity of their hateful glares.

“What the hell is this?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Downtown, Markhat. We’re going downtown, right now, just you and me and not a fancy, halfdead lawyer in sight.”

“Always happy to help the Watch with their inquiries, Captain. That’s my hat on the counter. Mind if I fetch it?”

“Lou. Get the man’s hat. Then put him in a wagon and take him to the Old Ruth. Shoot him in the leg if he gets smart.”

A Watchman grudgingly retrieved my hat. I put it on and adjusted the fit.

“You’re warming up to me, Captain Holder. Yesterday you’d have said shoot him in the head. By tomorrow, Lou here will be buying me beers-”

“Get him out of here. Stennis. Round up this mob. I want statements from everyone.”

Watchman Lou hustled me out the door. I bade my Ogre saviors a hasty farewell and clambered aboard the Watch hoosegow wagon with as much dignity as one can muster when being locked up in a soiled iron cage.

“Man, you’ve got some nerve, mouthing off at the Captain like that,” opined Lou as he forced the rusty lock shut. “He’s got it in for you, and no mistake.”

I leaned back, heedless of the dark stains on the rough-hewn wood, crossed my ankles, and pushed my hat down onto my nose.

“To know me is to love me,” I said. “What’s his first name, anyway? Your Captain’s, I mean.”

Lou snorted in derision and stomped away.

“Probably Eugene,” I said. I closed my eyes as the wagon rumbled into the street. “Maybe Percival.”

I didn’t nap. I did relax, relive my first sight of the dead woman, try to decide if she’d shown a flicker of emotion at any point during our brief but active acquaintance.

But all I could see were those bright blue eyes and that unwavering lie of a smile.

My afternoon with Captain Holder at the Old Ruth jail was markedly less than pleasant. Despite the two dozen witnesses to the assault and my refusal to draw Toadsticker from his scabbard, the good Captain was determined to hold me on at least one count of being Markhat.

Had Avalante not intervened, he’d probably have made good on that. I once spent a night in the Old Ruth, courtesy of the Watch. It’s not an experience I care to repeat. Until Evis’s lawyers showed up with writs of this and motions of that, I was wondering how to get word to Darla that her brand new husband might be spending the next fortnight pondering the error of his criminal ways.

But the lawyers came, and despite raised voices and much pounding of fists on tables and ominous vows to see me jailed until the Angels descend on pillars of fire come Judgment Day, Captain Holder let me go for the second time in as many days.

As I stepped out into the sunlight before darting into an Avalante carriage, I knew one thing-all the lawyers in Rannit wouldn’t get me out of the Old Ruth a third time.

I bade the driver to make haste, and I rubbed my wrists until the shackle-marks were all but gone.

They opened her up by cutting her from neck to navel and then from shoulder to shoulder. The dead don’t bleed. Much.

Stitches stood a pair of paces from us, her hood concealing her ruined face, her sleeves hiding her pale hands. She’s been standing there when Evis and I arrived, watching through the glass wall that separated us from the body. She hadn’t spoken or otherwise offered a greeting.

Evis hid his eyes behind dark glasses. The light in the autopsy room was noonday bright. None of the Avalante doctors were halfdead, and I wondered if that was because the blood would prove too tempting or the light was too intense.

I looked away as they peeled back the corpse’s skin.

Evis frowned. The doctors on the other side of the glass wall pointed and peered and moved about, poking and prodding at the dead woman’s insides like schoolboys finding a cache of new marbles.

“I’ll be damned,” said Evis.

“That’s the consensus of modern religious thought.”

Evis snorted. “That creature isn’t human. I’ll bet you two cigars.”

“Why? What did you see?”

“It’s what I didn’t see. But let’s hear what the good doctor has to say.”

As Evis spoke, one of the white-coats headed for the door. Evis opened it for him and the doctor joined us.

“That’s no woman,” he said. His hands were covered in blood. “No stomach. No intestines. No reproductive organs, no bladder, nothing. Doesn’t even have vocal cords.”

Evis spoke first. “What does it have?”

The doctor wiped his long nose, leaving it smeared with red. “Extra muscle. Solid bones, no marrow. Thought we’d never get the sternum cut. A third lung. And a lifespan of two days, maybe three, before it died of dehydration.” He shook his head. “Damnedest thing I ever saw. You say it came at someone?”

“Me. Nearly got me. Took a pair of Ogres to put her down.”

He grunted. “Not surprised. We want to open the skull, see how much of a brain it had. You’re a lucky man. If I had to guess, I’d say that thing was created to go out and kill someone and then just sit there until it fell over dead a day later.”

Evis crossed his arms over his chest. “Open the skull. Learn what you can. When you’re done, Stitches will take over. I want to know who made that thing and how they did it, and I want to know by tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll do what I can.” The good doctor failed to exude confidence. He did wipe more blood on his nose before returning to his fellows and the still body on the slab.

And behold, there is no new thing under the sun. No, not one.

“Nice to see you again too,” I said. “Is that scripture you’re quoting?”

Stitches laughed softly in my head. Indeed, though it is not a scripture native to the church you know. Evis. The good doctor will discover nothing of value, other than what he has already divulged. Neither, I suspect, shall I.

Evis frowned behind his glasses. “Your quote made me think you knew something already.”

Indeed I do. That creature was once called a bentan in a tongue that predates the Kingdom. They are the product of a potent magic and they are indeed designed to kill and then quickly die. Stitches turned to face me, though her cowl kept her face concealed. You have attracted the malice of a powerful sorcerer, Markhat. Doubtless one of the Corpsemaster’s rivals.

“Me? Why waste perfectly good malice on me? Hell, I never even knew the woman’s real name. I’ve got less political pull than Evis’s right boot. Why me?”

The way her hood tilted, I got the impression Stitches was giving me a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding stare.

“Markhat. You walked with the huldra. More than once. Do you not remember?”

I groaned and settled against the wall.

The huldra. Just thinking the word had nightmarish memories flooding back. I remember holding the cursed thing, right after the Corpsemaster tricked Mama into giving it to me.

I remembered walking, guided by the huldra’s whispering. I remembered growing, towering up above Rannit, until people and carriages scurried like ants at my feet.

I remembered the things the huldra tried to show me-the dark secrets it wanted to reveal to me, if I would just give it a tiny sliver of my soul.

“I’m never going to be free of that damned thing, am I?”

I assume your question is rhetorical. Unless you do, in fact, still possess it, or the remains of it?

“I broke it into pieces. Stomped them into powder. Dumped that into my chamber-pot. Threw that in a sewer.”

A novel approach to rendering it inert. Novel, but effective. Although you may wish you could wield its power in the days ahead if these attacks continue.

“You think they will?”

She shrugged. I cannot say. Perhaps the sorcerer is satisfied you no longer hold the huldra and thus are no longer a threat. Perhaps this was unrelated to the huldra at all and was merely done out of petty spite.

“I have a hard time believing anyone took the trouble to whip up a pair of those creatures just out of spite.” Evis was watching the white-coats pull the thing’s face off. “When is the last time you know of these bentan appearing?”

Pre-Kingdom. Prehistoric. They are the stuff of legend, at least until today. But do not ascribe a predominance of rationality to my brethren across the Brown. Most are quite mad by any measure you care to employ.

“How comforting. So they might be after my head because of the huldra, which I don’t have, or because I once wore brown shoes with a black suit, or because the Corpsemaster snubbed them at a dinner party a thousand years ago. Marvelous.” I wished for a chair but none were in sight. “Do either of you have any sage advice about how I might best live through all this sudden attention?”

“Look both ways before crossing the street,” said Evis.

There is a monastery devoted to the brewing of beer some nine hundred miles distant, noted Stitches.

I sank to my haunches. “Go to Hell, both of you.”

Stitches laughed again. Evis. Show him the Mark Twos. Markhat. The huldra may be gone, but its reputation remains. Ponder how you might use that to your advantage. She made for the door as the doctors peeled away the dead woman’s hair, leaving her bright blue eyes set in a wet and grinning skull.

I stood and turned quickly away.

“I’ve seen enough,” said Evis. Maybe it was the room’s harsh light, but he looked even paler than usual. “Let’s go get you a Mark Two.”

I didn’t even ask what a Mark Two was. I didn’t care. It could have been a three-headed billy goat with profound incontinence problems, and I’d have hugged it tight to my bosom just to get away from that room with the doctors and the fresh-skinned skull.

We walked.

“How’d you get the body, anyway?” I asked after a while. “I can’t believe the Watch just handed it over, even to Avalante.”

Evis grinned.

“Do you have any idea how much city morgue attendants make in a year?”

“No idea at all.”

“Neither do I, really. But rumor has it they’ll do almost anything for ten times their annual salary in Old Kingdom coin. Look the other way for a half hour, for instance.”

I whistled. “Good Captain Holder is going to burst a vein when he finds out.”

Evis shrugged. “We didn’t get the knife. I wanted that knife, and a sample of whatever was on the blade. Are you sure it never touched you?”

“Next time I’ll remember to get a flesh wound.”

We paused to let a parade of black-clad halfdead float by. Each held a long-barreled version of my hand cannon.

I pretended not to notice. Evis winked and resumed walking as soon as they were past.

“What’s a Mark Two, anyway, and why isn’t it a beer?”

“It’s a new revolver. Smaller than that blunderbuss you have but don’t carry. Fires six rounds instead of four, and in half the time. Small enough to conceal in a pocket. More stopping power, too.”

“Evis, thanks. But I couldn’t have opened up with that hand-cannon in a hotel lobby if I’d had it. I start shooting and somebody’s granny is going to get shot, and Captain Holder won’t need a good reason to bury me under the Old Ruth.”

“So take careful aim. Look. If one of the Corpsemaster’s old enemies has decided to take you out, you’re going to need more than a blade and you know it.”

“You say this Mark Two is smaller and more powerful?”

“We’ve improved the powder. The projectile is smaller but much faster.”

“Any chance I can get two of the miracle dinguses?”

“Get three or half a dozen. Why?”

“I want Darla to have one. Just in case.”

“Not a bad idea.”

We paused again, this time to let a trio of white-coated day folk huff and puff as they shoved some enormous mechanical contrivance around a corner.

I watched them wrestle with the thing, which made ominous buzzing noises as it moved.

“Just what are you people up to down here, Evis?”

He smiled a toothy vampire smile.

“Wouldn’t you love to know?”

Chapter Six

One of the many dark secrets hidden far beneath the neat slate roof of House Avalante is a vast, gloomy chamber they call the New Battery.

The New Battery is a firing range. There, I joined Evis and a few dozen somber, halfdead soldiers who were also practicing their aim with the long-barreled firearms they call rifles.

Evis tried to explain the name to me. The rifle barrels are filled with grooves, also called rifles, which causes the rounds to spin, which causes them to fly straight and true. My Mark Two revolver has grooves too, although at least two passing halfdead marksmen scoffed at the idea any mere handgun could benefit from such grooves.

I spent two hours down in the near-dark and expended several hundred of Avalante’s rounds before I could claim to hit a man-sized target twenty feet away more than half the time. Evis amused himself by using his own Mark Two to add eyes and a cheery smile to his target.

My stomach growled loud enough for the rumble to be heard above the crack crack crack of a dozen rifles. I lowered my weapon and stepped back from the firing line.

“You’re a long way from being any good with that,” said Evis.

“I’ll just throw it when I run out of bullets. I’m hungry and Darla will be home soon. I don’t want her to be home alone.”

“You should bring her here. Stay until we get a handle on the stabby brunettes. Ancient bugaboo or not, they won’t get past the front doors. Not in one piece.”

I popped out the spent cartridges, just as Evis taught, and replaced them with live rounds before pushing the cylinder back in place and listening for the sharp snap that tells you it’s ready to fire.

“If it comes to that we will. Thanks, Evis. I owe you. Again.”

He shrugged it off with a grin. “Least I can do for Captain Markhat, Hero of the Realm. By the way, we’ve set a date for the Queen’s maiden voyage. We depart in two weeks. Special guests and all.”

“I’ll be ready. Got to earn my exorbitant fee.”

Evis nodded and set about slaughtering a fresh paper target. I headed toward the New Battery’s only door and began the long uphill climb toward the sun.

Darla beat me home. She was sitting on our porch swing, a cup of chamomile tea steaming in her hands, when the cab dropped me off at the curb.

Our neighbors were outdoors as well. The man of the house was watering their new rosebushes while his lady critiqued his pouring style. Darla hid her grin behind her cup.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite husband,” she said, patting the seat beside her in invitation. “How was your day?”

I could smell soup cooking inside. I sat and my stomach rumbled audibly.

“Oh, lunch with the Regent, croquet in the Park, that sort of thing,” I said. “Deadly dull, I’m afraid.”

Darla nodded, all smiles. “So that wasn’t you who was attacked by a woman, saved by an Ogre, and hauled off to jail right after?”

“I’m glad you and Gertriss stay in touch.”

“She’s worried sick.” Darla balanced her empty cup carefully on the windowsill and settled close beside me. “I told her not to worry-that you had a plan, that you weren’t just stumbling through trouble hoping it all goes away. Was I wrong about that, dearest? Please tell me I wasn’t wrong.”

“Me? Stumble? Hope? You know better than that. I was in fact lying in wait for that crazed woman, knowing a pair of sturdy Ogres stood vigilant nearby.”

She pinched me.

“Ouch.”

“That’s for fibbing. Darling. Honey. Light of my life. You didn’t even draw your sword?”

“Honest, hon. I knew the Ogres would be getting involved. If they’d found me with Toadsticker drawn, facing a woman, they’d have raised their formidable Ogre fists and clobbered me first.”

She sighed. “That’s why they’re sending women, you know. Because they know you’ll hesitate.”

“Maybe I did the first time. But I didn’t today, and I won’t again.”

“You’d better not. I certainly won’t.” She stood before I could speak. “Supper is ready. Are you hungry?”

“Famished. The Regent sets a poor table for lunch. Nothing but tiny little sandwiches and parsley.”

“Still better than a tin cup of gruel at the Old Ruth.”

I stood and offered Darla my arm.

“Gertriss talks too much.”

“My husband talks too little.”

“Nonsense. I wished you a good morning just last Tuesday.”

I opened our door like a gentleman, and locked it tight behind.

Darla washes. I dry.

We both kept an eye on the kitchen window above the sink. The window looks out on the tiny fenced yard in the back of our house. There’s a poplar tree and a struggling young blood-oak back there. Darla wants a gazebo. I’m not sure what we’ll do with a gazebo but one of these days I’ll hire a couple of carpenters and we’ll build one where the poplar can shade it in fifteen years, if it hurries.

The sun set as I dried the last cup. Darla closed the kitchen window’s wooden shutters and locked them tight. I reflected that a single half-hearted punch would rip the latch apart and probably tear the shutters out of their frame as well.

“Did Gertriss mention Evis and his offer of a room half a mile under Avalante?”

Darla nodded. “I’ll not be chased out of our home by any crazed floozy,” she said.

“She was a floozy? I had no idea. How can one tell? Purely in the spirit of inquiry, that is.”

Darla used another word I’d never heard her pronounce.

“Such language,” I said.

“Would you be a dear and lock the rest of the windows, hon?” She reached into her apron pocket and withdrew a shiny silver revolver, a near twin to the inky black one I was waiting to give her. “I want to change and get ready for bed. Or battle. Whichever comes first.”

“Where did you get that?”

“Gertriss, of course. Isn’t it lovely? Much smaller than that clumsy cannon they gave you.”

I reached into my own pockets and put both black Mark Twos on the kitchen table.

“Evis sent these today. Belated wedding presents-”

Darla squealed-which she almost never does-pocketed her shiny gun, and snatched up both the Twos. “Ooh, I like these! I’ll take this one,” she said, bringing the one in her right hand up to a firing position. “Did you bring ammunition, too?”

“Indeed, sweetums.” I lowered her arm and stole a kiss. “My wife, the artillery woman.”

“I have to be, married to you.” She kissed me back and slipped out of my grasp. “I’ll be right back. If you shoot any magical assassins, make sure they’re not standing on my good red rug.”

“Yes, dear.”

She made for the bedroom, and I set about closing windows and locking shutters against whatever the night might bring.

Night took her time.

We listened to the neighbors for a while. They had company-two other couples-and they were all on their porch, laughing and talking and putting a couple or three bottles of red wine to good use.

They were indoors and quiet when the Brass Bell rang out, soft and nearly inaudible in the distance. Darla stretched out on the sofa and pretended to sleep, her hands full of guns. I took the claw-footed chair by her head and turned it so it faced our door and laid into my old Army knife with a whetstone.

The hours crept by, sock-foot and sneaky. Midnight, then one o’clock, then two. I heard Darla’s breathing change right after two and I let her sleep.

Three o’clock, shouted a distant Watchman. Three o’clock, and all is well.

The hairs on the back of my neck disagreed. The only sounds I’d heard were the ones every house makes when no one is stirring. Rafters creak, soft as a whisper. Joists stretch and groan. Floorboards pop, all with hardly more volume than the tread of a beetle.

Outside, nothing sinister stirred in the moonless shadows beyond my front window. An owl hooted softly. Someone’s dog yapped. I should have felt safe and secure.

But I didn’t. The air took on that peculiar breathless stillness that heralds storms. We’d all learned to pick out that stillness during the War. Sometimes it was all that saved us because the Trolls moved like shadows, silent and untiring and always, always deadly.

I put down my knife and took up my big old blunderbuss of a four-shot revolver. Maybe the new one was smaller and faster, but there was something comforting about holding a big, heavy cannon when you feel death ambling toward your door.

Darla’s eyes opened suddenly, two points of light glinting in the candlelight.

I blew out the candle and we waited in the dark.

We didn’t wait long. Two minutes, maybe three, and we heard footsteps beyond the yard, out on the sidewalk.

Light, small treads. With the click of heels and the dainty scrape of a woman’s fancy shoe.

I tried to count feet and divide by two, got lost somewhere in the teens. Darla mouthed the word “fifteen“ at me and sat up, facing our door.

Outside, someone tried the gate. I’d locked it. She pushed. Iron scraped and groaned and gave with a sharp rasping snap.

And then they came, in no hurry at all, down our cobblestone walk and up the three wooden steps to our porch and across it right to our door.

They gathered there, spreading out across the porch, silhouetting themselves in our windows as darker shadows against the night.

They did not speak. They could not.

One laid her pale hand on my door, turned the knob, and began to push.

I rose. Darla did as well. I motioned her to stay behind me and I made my way quickly to the door. I know which floorboards creak. I made it without treading on one.

The shadows at the windows moved, converging on the door that was straining in its frame.

I put the barrel of my four-shooter right against the door, just where a petite woman’s forehead should be, and I squeezed the trigger.

The gun roared like thunder. The pressure on the door eased, but only for an instant, and I felt the door strain as many more hands fell upon it and pushed.

I emptied the remaining three rounds into the door. If one of the women fell, she did so without any fuss, and without reducing the pressure on my door frame, which was beginning to pull away from the wall.

Darla came rushing in from the hall. “There are more at the back,” she said, her voice a tad too calm. “They aren’t trying to force the door, but I can see four of them waiting there.”

“They have weapons?”

“I think so.”

“Probably poisoned. They’re hoping we’ll make a break out the back, get nicked. Then all they have to do is wait.”

Glass broke in front of us. A hand reached in, perfect fingernails scratching against the shutter, trying to find the latch.

Darla fired. The wounded hand withdrew, but more glass began to shatter and the shutters began to shake.

I shoved the empty gun in my pocket and grabbed a loaded one. “Pantry,” I said, grabbing Darla’s elbow. “No windows there.”

She spun out of my grasp.

“You’re not locking me away in any pantry, Mr. Markhat.” She took aim at something behind me and fired. “This is my house they’re defiling.”

I opened my mouth to explain that it was me they were after, me they wanted. Just me. If I made a dive through a window and took off running, it would be me they’d chase.

But before I got the first word out, the front door gave, slamming open like a gunshot and letting in a crowd of smiling, well-coifed ladies.

Each held a blade. Kitchen knives, fancy daggers, even a silver letter opener. Each was silent.

None hesitated, not even for an instant.

Darla and I emptied our guns. Between us, we managed to bring down six of the smiling women, which left nine converging on us, their smiles never wavering.

The back door splintered and gave. I shoved Darla toward the kitchen. Toadsticker and I got lucky and took away the fingers holding the knife that was speeding toward my gut.

Dainty feet crushed broken glass in the hall.

“Go!” I said.

Damned if Darla didn’t shut the kitchen door, put it to her back, and pop the cylinder out of her revolver to start filling it with rounds.

Three black-haired beauties rushed me.

I slashed at the foremost. She stepped nimbly away from Toadsticker and her twin darted in behind my blade. I heard Darla’s gun clicking as she struggled to seat the cylinder. I knew, even as I threw up my left arm and charged, that I was about to find out exactly what kind of poison they smeared on their blades.

The smiling women might have solid bones and extra muscle, but I’d spent the years since the war drinking good honest beer and dining on the finest ham sandwiches One-eyed Eddie had to offer. I hit them hard and lashed out with my legs and grabbed hair with one hand and flailed away with Toadsticker in the other, and we all went down in a tangle of blades and elbows and knees.

I got in a good solid stab with Toadsticker. I slammed another head hard against the floor. Then I rolled and leaped and hit a wall and managed to come to my feet about the time Darla opened up again, dropping four more brunettes before going empty.

It only took a few heartbeats for the numbness to spread. I stumbled, put my hand down to my gut. It came away sticky and wet and warm.

I hadn’t even felt her cut me.

“Damn,” I said. I felt movement behind me, so I whirled Toadsticker in a wide arc at petite head level. Toadsticker bit, connecting with something solid.

She went down.

I managed three steps toward Darla before my legs just gave up and folded.

“Sorry about the rug,” I heard myself say. “Maybe Mama knows a magic laundry spell.”

The dark room got suddenly darker. I heard, as from a great distance, Darla shout my name. And I saw, dimly, shapes move in the shadows, circling me, wary and silent and in no hurry at all.

I realized I was face-down on the rug, and I pushed myself up, heard the rustling of fancy black gowns.

Darla snatched Toadsticker out of my hand.

And then came the scream.

We all heard it, even the quiet ladies with their perpetual smiles and their shiny bright knives. It was a peculiar sort of scream-one that started out small and distant and faint, but quickly grew into a breathless, ear-piercing howl that, impossibly, managed to sound from a place directly behind you, moving with you if you turned.

I struggled to remember where I’d heard that scream before as the numbness spread to my chest and began to inch and ooze its way up my neck.

The smiling women’s skirts grew still. They no longer walked. A tiny portion of my mind recognized this as a very good thing, though I couldn’t place the significance in context just yet.

Buttercup appeared in front of me, her tiny hands lifted, her small but powerful banshee lungs filling the room with a keening, rising howl that filled every nook and cranny until the volume threatened to make your ears burst and bleed.

Darla moved past us, a tall shadow in the dark. Toadsticker gleamed as she raised him and flashed as she swung.

A small shadow fell, and then another, and another. Buttercup’s howl went up and on and up and on, and it tugged at me as if insisting that I follow.

I lost all feeling in my jaw, in my lips, in my nose. I wasn’t sure I was still breathing, and I wasn’t sure that was important.

Toadsticker rose and Toadsticker fell, and still the shapes didn’t move-didn’t resist or flee, didn’t struggle.

Something poked me right between my eyes.

I blinked, barely felt a second poke and struggled to focus.

It poked me again. A pair of small red eyes, each iris a dancing point of flame, stared into mine.

A tiny hand slapped me, tugged at my ear. I tried to speak, couldn’t, and struggled to keep my eyes open.

The eyes flared and in the brief glow of them I saw a thumb-sized impish face appear. It puckered its thin red lips and it spat into my eyes, something that burned and stung and left me blinded.

Buttercup’s cry went silent. My ears rang. She went to her knees and put her face close to mine.

“Dollies,” she said, her voice as high and cheerful as any child’s.

Darla knelt down beside her. Her cheeks were spattered with blood.

I surprised myself by speaking.

“Any of that yours?”

The feeling in my face flooded back. The numbness fled my chest. The sharp wicked pain of a gash across my ribs made me wince.

I found my legs and put them under me and managed to rise manfully to a crouch.

“Thank you, Mr. Simmons,” I said.

If the imp was anywhere around, he didn’t reply.

“You’re delirious,” said Darla.

I made it to my feet. Buttercup danced and clapped her hands in glee.

“Maybe. Are you hurt? Did they nick you?”

“No. They just stopped moving. I don’t think.” She swallowed hard. “I don’t think they’ll get up again.”

I took Toadsticker gently from her hand.

“We need to go. Right now. Before any more show up.”

“You said the blades were poisoned.”

“They were. But I’m all better now, see?” I took a pair of wobbling steps and picked up my gun out of a pool of blood.

Buttercup vanished from my side and reappeared inside our open front door. She was glowing softly, like a cloud-covered moon.

“Dollies,” she said, her tone suddenly somber. She pointed north.

The numbness was gone. My wound was wide but shallow. I’d need stitches but I judged I’d live long enough to get them.

I joined Buttercup in the ruined door. Lights were going on in windows up and down the street. Here and there, the bolder neighbors peeked out of half-open doors, lanterns or candles in their hands.

“Sorry for the noise, folks,” I shouted. “Hedgehogs. Big ones. Had to put them down. I’d stay inside, if I were you. Think we missed a couple.”

With that, I took banshee in one hand, bride in the other, and we ran until we managed to find a Watchman and summon a carriage and bleed all the way to Avalante.

Chapter Seven

Doctors hovered until I pitched a fit and chased two of them out of the room with the same bedpan they were insisting that I use. Darla helped by sitting in a corner and nearly choking with laughter.

Evis himself appeared a few minutes later, noticeably bereft of bedpans or white-coated doctors.

“Well. I see you’re making yourself popular with the staff. Hello, Mrs. Markhat. Is he always this quick to make friends?”

Darla stood, smiling. If you didn’t know her well enough to tell her real smiles from the manufactured one she showed, she looked not only composed but cheerful.

The bloodstains on her blouse were dry, but large and plain.

“You should see him first thing in the morning. It’s like living with an Ogre.”

Evis laughed without showing his teeth and pulled a chair up close to my bed.

“The good news is they can’t find any trace of poison in your blood.”

“Marvelous. Hear that, Darla? I can die of old age after all.”

“Not so fast. We still don’t know what was on the blade in the first place. Stitches says you’re to stay right there, with a doctor at the door, in case there’s some time-delayed element to the agent we just can’t see.”

I groaned. Darla deflated a little, realizing, I guess, that Stitches had just won her argument for her.

“I’m telling you, Evis, Mr. Simmons spat in my eyes and cured me right there.”

Evis nodded amiably, as I might do in the presence of an old man telling tales of flower-gathering fairies in the bygone days of yore.

“I mentioned that to Stitches,” said Evis. “She muttered something about hallucinogens and psychotropic venoms. “

“So you think I dreamed all that.”

Evis turned his dirty marble eyes toward Darla.

“Did you see anything in the room, aside from your headstrong husband and the, um, intruders?”

She shook her head no. “It was dark. I was busy. I suppose something small could have been sneaking about, but…”

Evis sighed and looked back at me. “Maybe you didn’t get a killing dose. Hell, maybe you were saved by imp expectorant.”

“It’s been that kind of night.”

“Let’s hope it’s all over. By the way. We’re moving you two as soon as Stitches is satisfied you’re out of the woods. You’ll be moving into a stateroom on the Queen.”

“On the boat?”

“Third deck, port side, two doors down from me, across the hall from Stitches. Surrounded by the most potent sorcerers and most skilled soldiers Avalante can field. Safest place I can think of.”

“How far from the saloon?”

“Not far enough,” said Darla. She fixed me with her most unsmiling smile. “What about our house? And Buttercup?”

“When you two go home you’ll find all the damage repaired, all the evidence removed. We’ve even convinced your neighbors the ruckus was just kids with fireworks.”

“You’ve got the bodies here?”

I started to rise but Evis pushed me back with that cold, small, halfdead hand of his.

“You don’t have to worry about them. They’ve been rendered harmless. Stitches thought it was worth taking a look. She may have been right. Said this batch wasn’t as finished as the other one we saw. Said the maker might have been in a hurry-might have slipped up somehow.”

“Not as finished? What the hell does that mean?”

“You’ll have to ask her. But not tonight. Tonight, you two are to get some rest. Mrs. Markhat-”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, my name is Darla. Just like it was before we married. Darla.”

“Darla, there’ll be a doctor in a chair outside the door all night. Yell if our patient here so much as sneezes. And you.” He waggled a finger at me. “No more brandishing of bedpans, you hear? We may need all the doctors we can get if this thing goes bad.”

I yawned because I couldn’t help it.

Evis stood. “Any sign of Buttercup?”

“Nope. She’s probably dancing atop the Brass Bell or tweaking Captain Holder’s long nose.”

Buttercup had simply vanished from the carriage well before we crossed the Brown River Bridge. Neither Darla nor I was worried. Diminutive she might be, but Buttercup was also a banshee who’d probably been wandering the wilderness all alone before the Old Kingdom started piling up rocks and calling them walls. If any ne’er-do-wells spotted Buttercup and attempted any mischief on her as she headed back to Mama’s-well, the dead wagons would doubtlessly collect what was left come the dawn.

Evis shrugged. “Probably. Look. Get some sleep and try not tear out your stitches. You’re safe here.”

I grunted assent. My belly wound was burning where Avalante’s smiling human doctors had smeared some stinging blue fluid all over the new stitches. My head was pounding, whether as a result of the poison or imp-spit or both or neither I couldn’t say.

Evis aimed a tiny little bow toward Darla and took his leave. She waited until the door was shut and joined me on the bed.

“I like him, you know.”

We scooted and rolled and got tangled in the fancy sheets and finally established a more or less comfortable position with me on my back and Darla on her side facing me.

“He’s a barrel of laughs, that Evis.”

She tweaked my nose gently. “He’s a good friend. And a gentleman. Not the pretend kind. He’s rich but he works hard. Halfdead but he’s got a big heart.”

“He’s a man of paradoxes, all right.”

“You can put that hand right back where it came from, mister. You’re here to recuperate.”

“I find that recuperative.”

“I’ll call for leeches. You know I will.”

I sighed. She smiled in weary victory.

“You know Gertriss is sweet on him, and vice versa.”

“Why does everyone say that like I’m going to be shocked? I was a finder while Evis was in knee-pants and you were learning accounting. I can tell when the wind blows, you know.” I tapped my temple. “Smarts, that’s what I’ve got.”

Darla snuggled closer.

“Gertriss is worried about what you’re going to say.”

“I’m not going to say a damned thing. What she and Evis get up to is their business, none of mine.”

“That’s not really true, darling. She wants your blessing. She needs it. So does Evis, you know.”

“He’s got it and he knows it.”

“Does he?”

“I said it plain and simple. He knows.”

“Be a dear and say it to Gertriss too, won’t you?” I swear she batted her eyes. “For me?”

“I thought we’d established that hands were to stay outside the sheets.”

“Yours, perhaps. Not mine.”

I did sleep.

Eventually.

Morning came, bringing with it the smiles and fresh-scrubbed faces of the Avalante day staff and the grumbled greetings and dark glasses of the Avalante halfdead who worked the day shift.

Darla and I picked scrambled eggs out of the same enormous breakfast plate and speculated just how far underground we were. I’d forgotten to count stair landings on our way down, and Darla had been too busy watching me for signs of imminent demise to even realize we were descending.

Doctors came and poked and prodded and frowned and whispered. I was finally pronounced healthy and whole after the obligatory physician’s lecture on the evils of alcohol and a sedentary lifestyle.

At last, the somber-faced physicians filed out, and I rose from my sickbed, a man ready to face a second helping of breakfast.

Alas, Darla and the Avalante day staff had other plans for me. We were to be moved to the Queen, we were, before the noon.

“Your wife’s clothes and accoutrements, as well as your own garments, are being conveyed to the Queen as we speak,” quoth Mr. Bevins, who was obviously unaware of my high favor within Avalante since he made it clear that no garment I was likely to own was worthy of being incinerated, much less conveyed. “We will be leaving within the hour. I suggest you make yourself ready.”

I gave Darla my famous raised eyebrow questioning glance. “Dear, when did we get accoutrements, and won’t they chase the cat?”

Mr. Bevins inflated. “Good day, sir.”

He had the grace not to slam the door behind him.

Darla found a water closet. Faucets squealed as she bemoaned the state of her hair.

I tiptoed to the door, opened it a crack, and listened.

I heard nothing. The absence of sound was utter and complete. I revised my initial estimate, putting us at least a hundred feet below the morning sun.

Darla wrapped her arms around my shoulders.

“I’ve never even been on a boat,” she said. “Do you think it will have proper bathrooms?”

I shook my head. “Holes in the deck, I imagine. We’ll sleep wrapped in scraps of sail. But it won’t matter since we’ll be exhausted from rowing all day.”

She laughed, her breath warm on the back of my neck.

“You’ve never been on a boat either, have you?”

“Of course I have. I know all about boats. Port, starboard, aft, sinking. We’ll have to fight pirates when we aren’t bailing leaks or trimming the jib. I hope they bring your rain boots. At least then your feet can stay dry.”

“Ha. This is a gambling boat, no? It’ll be a palace with a hull. Surely there will be bathrooms.”

“If not, I’ll commandeer you one. I am a Captain, after all. Which means I can stride manfully across the poop deck and shout out orders to the common seamen.”

She leaned against me and sighed.

“I don’t want to live on a boat, you know. Even if it has proper bathrooms.”

“We’ll be home before you know it, Darla. I promise. We’ll sort all this out, and we’ll go home and put up a new door and get a new rug and live happily ever after.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

I closed the door on the silent hall and we sat on the bed until they came to fetch us.

Darla need not have been concerned about the sophistication of the Queen’s facilities.

The toilets flushed. The his-and-hers lavatories ran with hot and cold water. The bathtub was a marble and copper edifice to the fine art of bathing, complete with scented bath oils, fluffy white towels, and a wall with a recess in which a dozen fat candles were merrily burning. Darla’s make-up and hair articles were already on her vanity, arranged just as they’d been at home.

There were closets-one for us each. Our clothes were there, pressed and hung. All three pairs of my shoes were shined and ready for duty. Toadsticker had been honed and polished, my hats were all hanging on fine silver hooks, and I was more than ready to trade my life as a landlubbing finder for a permanent post here on the raging high seas.

Our room was actually three rooms. There was a small sitting room into which the suite’s only door opened. That led into the bedroom, and off that was the bathroom-or as Darla called it, ‘my own copper Heaven.’

And it wasn’t just our stateroom awash in polished cherry-wood opulence. Every inch of the Brown River Queen was either gilded in gold or trimmed with hand-carved oak.

There was a lot of Queen to gild, too. She was more than four hundred feet long, from the big red paddle at the back to the blunt nose at her fore, and a hundred feet across her shallow, flat hull. Four decks rose above all that-the first deck being the casino and stage, the next being the staterooms, the next smaller rooms for the middling rich, and finally the top deck with its guards at the stair landings, where the Regent and his retinue would be housed.

We were hustled up to our room without a grand tour. But I’d caught a glimpse of the casino deck, and despite the haphazard presence of ladders and scaffolds and shouting carpenters, I’d been awed.

It was cavernous. The ceilings were high and trimmed out in dark oak. The windows were glass-but stained glass, artfully designed to bathe the entire vast casino deck in a soothing mix of greens and blues.

Four enormous hanging lights, things of crystal and sparkles that must have been forged with a deep and potent sorcery, glittered and shone in the colored daylight. Whether oil or gas or candle, they weren’t lit, but I could imagine that when they were the whole room would take on the same silver glow cast by a bright full moon.

The floor was a dark crimson carpet. Gaming tables and devices, covered by clean white sheets, awaited the eager rush of gamblers and vampires and criminals that was soon to come.

There was a stage at the far end of the place, hidden by blood-red curtains emblazoned with Avalante’s roses-and-lances crest.

Twin staircases, one port and one starboard, graced the aft end of the casino deck. Each swooped up into the dark, and we followed the wide carpeted treads up to the staterooms.

Our room was designated 111 by the shiny brass plate upon the door. Like all the other doors on the hall, ours was flanked by a pair of grinning silver gargoyles who held small but brilliant magelamps in each gnarly little hand. Our door was solid and thick and I judged a half dozen Ogres couldn’t have knocked it down, especially after, once we were inside, Darla or I lowered the ornate but decidedly functional bar across the back.

I sat upon our vast expanse of new feather bed and watched as Darla fussed with this or made oohing and ahing noises over that.

The first thing I noticed about being on the Queen was the motion. Or rather, the lack thereof. I’d been expecting to feel some slight pitch and roll because even tied at her private and heavily guarded dock, she was floating on the lazy, muddy waters of the Brown River.

But try as I might, I couldn’t feel even the smallest hint of motion.

“I believe Evis mentioned something about sorcerous motion control,” said Darla, plopping down suddenly beside me.

I hadn’t said a word.

“You were holding your breath.” She lay back, stretching and yawning. “I’m exhausted. Let’s take a nap.”

“You go ahead. I’m not sleepy.”

“Liar.” She sat up and put her chin on her fists. “What are you going to do, sneak around? Evis said he’d be back later to give us the grand tour.”

“A good finder never sneaks, my dear. We amble. We stroll. We peruse, and we do it all out in the open because we have every right to be right wherever we are.”

“So you are going to sneak. I’m coming with you.”

“What about your nap?”

She grinned and rolled off the bed. “Time for that later. I’m learning how to be a finder. I assume you’re going to bathe and shave?”

I kicked off my shoes. “Can’t impress the crew like this.”

“I’ll find something scandalous, then.”

I bathed and shaved and bled from my gut wound until we managed to get a fresh dressing wrapped around it. Even though I had to keep my torso out of the water, the hot bath and the rich man’s soap felt good.

One thing about Darla-she can make herself presentable, as she calls it, in a hurry. I’d managed to put a decent knot in my necktie and find one of my shoes when she emerged from the bedroom, dressed and ready to face the world.

I whistled. She’d opted for a long black dress that covered everything from ankle to throat. It wasn’t tight enough to stop traffic, but it wasn’t so loose you couldn’t tell her gender. She’d buttoned the slit on the side all the way down, but even so I caught a glimpse of silk-covered leg through it when she walked.

A tiny black pillbox hat trimmed with black lace completed the look. She winked at me from beneath the lace and grinned.

“I was aiming for distracting without being obvious,” she said.

I stood there with one shoe on and made noises with my mouth.

“Come on,” she said, laughing. “Let’s go see the things Evis wouldn’t want us to see.”

I finished dressing and we set out to explore.

The first thing I realized was exploring the Queen would require days-not hours-of steadfast, determined poking about.

I’d listened to Evis as he bragged about her, but admittedly I was distracted by more pressing matters involving Lowland Sweet cigars and refills of beer. Darla, on the other hand, could recite the wonders of the Queen with considerable precision.

“She is four hundred and sixteen feet long and ninety-seven feet wide,” said Darla in a near-perfect imitation of Evis. We made our way down the darkened grand staircase that led down to the casino deck. “She has one hundred twenty-one crew, and will carry four hundred twenty-five passengers, including one over-priced finder.”

“Evis should hire you as a purser.”

“He should. What’s a purser? Do they blow the steam whistles?”

“Probably.”

We rounded the gentle sweep of the final curve, and the darkness gave way to the blues and greens and golds of the daylight streaming through the stained-glass windows.

A pair of wary-eyed Avalante day folk hurried toward us. Neither wore a sword, but from the tell-tale bulges beneath their jackets I knew they didn’t need to.

“I’ll have a beer,” I said as soon as they were in earshot. “The lady will have a glass of red wine. Is that suitable, Lady Markhat? Red wine?”

“Oh certainly,” said Darla, with much batting of her eyes. “Now, what are your names, gentlemen? Mr. Prestley said we’d be met, but he didn’t say by whom.”

I grinned and hoped the shadows hid most of it.

“Trokes, ma’am,” said the taller of the two.

“Meyer,” proclaimed the other after a glance at his partner and a frown at me.

“You’re Captain Markhat?”

“Indeed I am. This is Mrs. Markhat, although you can call her the Duchess if you want. She’s never been one to insist on the strictest rules of propriety. Isn’t that right, dear?”

“Quite right.” She aimed a smile at Trokes.

“We weren’t told-” began Meyer.

Trokes cut him off. “We knew you were coming aboard, Captain, Mrs. Markhat,” he said. “Didn’t expect to see you out and about until after supper. A beer, was it? And a glass of red wine?”

“If you’d be so kind.”

“You heard the Captain, Meyer,” said Trokes. “Have the wine steward pick out something nice.”

Meyer glared but turned and stomped away.

“Nice boat you’ve got here,” I said. I nodded toward the empty gambling hall and the sheet-covered gambling tables that waited like sleeping ghosts in the dark. “She going to be ready to get underway on schedule?”

The man’s chest expanded with sudden injured pride.

“Oh yes sir! We’ll be underway in a week, no doubt about it. They’ll get the pistons sorted out. Put in new reach rods yesterday. That will put things right. No doubt about it.”

“Ah yes, well, of course, the pistons.” I made a dismissive gesture as I spoke, as though the matter of the pistons was old news. “I’ve heard all about that. No. It’s the other matter that concerns me.”

Darla nodded, her smile gone, her eyes grave. “Yes. Deeply troubling, that.”

Trokes leaned in and spoke in a whisper. “Well, sir, Lady, I don’t mind telling you I think it’s so much nonsense, and that’s a fact. Nothing to it at all. Accidents happen, that kind of thing. Lesson to be learned, I say.”

“Oh, I quite agree,” I said, pulling a cigar from my jacket pocket and clipping off the end like a Lord of the Realm. “Bunch of superstitious nonsense. I’m glad we see eye-to-eye.”

“Oh, we do, Captain! People just shouldn’t get in a hurry. You get in a hurry, you step where you shouldn’t, or you fall down a shaft. That’s all there is to it. A curse? Bah.”

“Bah, indeed.” I produced a match and, with flourish appropriate to a man of my station, I lit my cigar. “Educated men have no cause to embrace such backward beliefs.”

“Are you sure, dear?” asked Darla, her eyes wide. “After all, there have been so many accidents!”

“Only a dozen, Mrs. Markhat,” said Trokes. “All easily explained. No doubt about it. Carelessness, and nothing more.”

Meyer came trotting back, my beer in one hand and Darla’s wine glass in another. Behind him scurried a small man in a white apron, and behind him was a boy pushing a silver cart bearing half a dozen wine bottles.

“Ah, refreshments,” I said, beaming. I took my beer and sipped it. Meyer wanted to glare at me but couldn’t quite work up the nerve so he glared at Trokes instead. “Wine, my dear?”

The cart rolled to a stop. The wine steward took his place behind it and began a detailed description of each of his bottles. Darla feigned interest and I motioned Meyer and Trokes aside.

“Thank you, gentleman, for your attention.” I shook hands with each, passing them a pair of heavy coins as I did so. Meyer’s glare vanished when he saw the first glint of Old Kingdom gold.

“Anything you need, sir, you just call for us!”

“Oh, I shall. Good day, gentlemen.”

Meyer was faster on the uptake. He took Trokes’s elbow and led him quickly away.

The wine steward had launched into a lecture on the relative soil acidity of the respective vineyards proffered. Darla was taking it all in with a perfect imitation of rapt attention, and if the little man’s chest puffed out any farther I feared he would soon burst.

“Mr. Lavit tells me the red Quinton Hollow is his favorite, dear,” she said, grinning. “But he notes that many prefer the fruitier aftertaste of the rather excellent Diamond Black. Which would you suggest?”

“Oh, I always trust my wine steward. If Mr. Lavit prefers the Quinton Hollow, that’s the one I’d try.”

Mr. Lavit allowed himself the smallest of smiles. Darla nodded, and with a practiced flourish the steward held up the bottle for inspection, waited for Darla’s approving nod, and then opened and poured.

“I surmise Sir is a beer man,” he said as he handed Darla her glass. “It so happens I have a special stock of a very rare beer on hand, in the ice room. Copeland Dark. Shall I have a barrel sent up to your room, later? I believe Sir will enjoy it.”

“I’ve never met a beer I didn’t like,” I said. A gold coin appeared on the man’s cart. “Thank you.”

A clean silken hanky made a pass across the spotless top of the cart. The coin vanished.

The little man grinned.

“I prefer beer myself,” he said, his voice a whisper. “And don’t let them serve you Elvish Garden. It’s swill-I don’t care what anyone says.”

“Duly noted.” Darla wandered off, pretending to inspect the ornate wood trim on the walls.

“So I hear the Queen is cursed,” I said.

He didn’t flinch or scoot suddenly away.

“So some say, sir.”

“Is that what you think?”

“I do not.” He lifted his hands toward the deck and the empty casino. “She is a thing of wood and glass. Beautiful, yes. She has no power to kill.”

“Still. A dozen fatal accidents? How do you explain that?”

“I do not, sir. But if anything beyond carelessness and misadventure killed these men, it wasn’t the Queen. Good day, sir. I trust you will enjoy your stay.”

And then he bowed a stiff little bow and he motioned his terrified young assistant out of the shadows and together they hurried away.

Darla joined me as they vanished into the dark.

“Did you hear all that?”

“Oh, yes. He sounded like a man with a lot to say.”

I took another draught of beer. It was dark but smooth and rich. If I was drinking Copeland Dark I was going to need more than one barrel.

“So, wife of mine, what have we learned from our little walk?”

“Well, the Arkham vineyards use far too much ash on their south-facing grapes, for one,” she said. “And the buyers at Second Palace are skimping by using cheap casks, which give the vintage a bitter tone.”

“Fascinating. Anything else?”

“Evis forgot to mention a dozen deaths and a mysterious curse.”

“Oh, he didn’t forget to mention anything.” I motioned toward the stage at the far end of the casino and we began to weave our way toward it through sheet-covered gambling tables. “He simply didn’t think it was relevant. Any construction project, even boat-building, can be dangerous. Evis dismissed the rumors as nonsense, not even worthy of mention.”

Darla nodded. “I suppose Evis would think that way.”

“Which is why we’re poking around without him. Even an honest client isn’t always going to give you the whole story, because they themselves don’t see it all.”

“So you think she’s really cursed?”

“Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t think anything just yet.”

“So where do we go next?”

I pointed toward the first door I happened to see. “Out there. And then down. Something has to move this boat, and someone has to feed it coal, and it won’t be men in suits who’ve been warned what to say and what not to say.”

“Coal, you say?”

“Coal, my dear. Or wood, or old boots, for all I know. Let’s go and see.”

She put her empty wineglass on a sheet-covered table. I put my empty beer bottle next to it and offered her my arm.

“Let’s go see the Ogres, Duchess.”

“Certainly,” she said, taking my arm.

And with that, we sought out ways down into the dark.

Chapter Eight

I was right about the coal and the Ogres.

Coal moves the Queen. It’s shoveled into three massive iron tanks called boilers by teams of Ogres that work in half-hour shifts. There is a fourth boiler tended by a pair of wand-wavers that requires no coal at all. One of the wand-wavers, a skinny lad barely out of his hundreds, tried to explain the magical heating process to me but he kept getting excited and lapsing into wizard-speak, and all I came away with from the conversation was that the single magical boiler could run the whole works in a pinch.

The Ogres were less talkative. Two dipped eyes at me, which might have meant they were Hoogas who knew my name or they were annoyed by my mere presence, and the sawdust was making them blink. I don’t speak enough Ogre to ask any questions, let alone understand the answers, so I just dipped my eyes in return and kept a respectful distance.

Keeping distance wasn’t hard above the engine deck. Up there, spacious and airy were the orders of the day. But down here, with the Ogres and the wand-wavers and the engineers and the boiler-men, Avalante hadn’t seen fit to trim the walls or even keep the ceiling at a safe height. I bumped my head half a dozen times, much to Darla’s quiet amusement.

“Where do they keep the coal?” she asked as we walked in a crouch toward another cluster of gleaming but incomprehensible machinery.

“I think Engineer Bartles mentioned something about a storage room at the fore.” I dodged another beam and wondered how the towering Ogres fared in the semi-dark maze.

“Bartles? He kept staring at my bosom. I don’t believe he leaves his post very often. And fore means front, I assume?”

“It does. Fore is front, port is left, starboard is right, and aft is where the big wheel turns.”

“Why don’t they just say left, right, front, and back, then?”

“Ask Bartles. Maybe he knows.”

“I’m not quite that curious. Although I am curious about one thing. When you mentioned the accidents, neither Bartles nor the other man seemed to know what you were talking about. Were they lying?”

I stopped at the face of the machine, which was a polished brass cabinet festooned with dials and levers and tiny red lamps that twinkled and shone in some pattern I couldn’t fathom.

“They weren’t lying,” I said. “They just didn’t know. They stay down here in the dark and they tend to their machines and what happens up there might as well happen way out west, for all they care.”

“You’d think the people living in the dark would be the ones most frightened by curses and the like.” She joined me in watching the blood-red lamps pulse and glow. “What in Heaven’s name does all this do?”

“This station allows the operator to oversee temperatures and pressures in every section of the Queen’s machinery,” said Evis, who simply stepped out of the shadows and joined us before the banks of lights and dials. “It’s one of three such stations. The gentleman who mans this position is called the lamp man. I trust your tour of the Queen has proven informative?”

Evis wasn’t wearing his dark-tinted spectacles down here in the shadows. The glow from the lamps gave his pale, angular face a devilish red hue and turned his white eyes into pulsing wells of fire.

He grinned, perfectly aware of his appearance.

Gertriss darted up to his side. “Hiya, boss, Darla,” she said. Then she reached up and yanked Evis’s ear. “You promised you wouldn’t make spooky eyes at people down here, didn’t you?”

The dapper little vampire chuckled, pulled his tinted spectacles from his coat pocket, and shrugged as he put them on.

“Consider it chastisement for starting the grand tour without me,” he said. “So, uncover any dastardly plots yet? You could say yes and save me a fortune, you know.”

I nodded gravely and dropped my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “It seems you’re foisting at least one unacceptable wine upon the drinking public, Mr. Prestley. I shall be forced to report this at once to the proper authorities.”

“So you’ve met Mr. Lavit. I might have known you’d start your inquiries at the nearest beer tap. Shall we head to the upper decks? I suspect a lavish meal is being prepared.”

“They’re using us as training for the kitchens,” added Gertriss cheerfully. She was wearing grey today-grey long skirts and grey blouse with just a hint of white at the neck. She laid an arm possessively on Evis’s shoulder and I wondered if she realized she did or just let the action slip. “They’re pulling out all the stops, as sort of a practice run for the cruise. It’ll be quite a feast, isn’t that right, Mr. Prestley?”

Evis nodded wordlessly. Gertriss laughed and removed her hand.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” I said. Darla said something to Gertriss and they paired off, whispering in the dark as Evis gestured toward the next bank of dim lights in the shadows.

“After you,” I said. “Warn me about low hanging beams, won’t you? My head has a tender spot.”

“Right between your ears,” offered Evis before he glided ahead. The last glimpse I saw of his face showed the visage of a man deep in thought.

I grinned and hurried after, Darla and Gertriss giggling and whispering in my wake.

Even the halfdead, it seemed, had doubts and conflicts about matters of the heart.

True to his word, Evis took us on a long, detailed tour of the Queen’s many niceties.

He started off by exchanging a few quiet words with the workmen still toiling frantically away on the casino deck. Satisfied, he led us to the stage, caused the curtains to be raised, and then he bade us to gaze out on the darkened room before motioning toward someone my mortal eyes couldn’t pick out of the shadows.

The massive chandeliers that hung above the casino floor flared slowly to life.

Darla, close at my side, took in a sudden breath and covered her mouth with her hand. Gertriss beamed at Evis, who winked at her behind his tinted spectacles and clapped his hands once.

The lights blazed, bathing the vast chamber in a bright, ethereal glow. I peeked through my fingers at the lights, which shone like patches of sky torn from the heavens and folded and woven and then somehow suspended from the Queen’s curving ceiling.

The lights spun and twinkled and moved. The light they cast didn’t so much shine upon you as envelope you.

“Magic,” said Darla, playing her fingers through the light as though her hands were submerged in warm, flowing water. “It must be.”

“We call them starlights,” said Evis with a closed-lip smile. “They cost a small fortune. Each one took three years to build. And by Yule there’ll be half a dozen hanging in the High House, or I’m a badger.”

He clapped again, and the starlights faded, and the shadows returned.

“Sorry, but they’re expensive to keep lit. Unless you’d care to lose a few large sums at our brand new gaming tables?”

“Not a chance.” I looked out across the empty casino. “So, how many gaming tables have you got?”

“Two hundred and ninety, to start. Card games there, roulette wheels there, something new we call a slot machine over there. Something for everyone, including the ladies.”

I whistled. I couldn’t even estimate the earning the House expected to pull in, night after night, but I didn’t think it would take long to pay off the Queen’s lavish construction expenses.

“And all of it tax free,” said Evis in tones that suggested worship.

“You’re kidding.”

“I am not. The Regent himself signed off on it. Any gambling that takes place on a boat is exempt from Regency taxation. Oh, we agreed to fund certain civic projects out of our earnings, but not a cent goes to taxes.”

“How many of these boats are you building?”

Evis shrugged and pretended to inspect a talon. “Six or eight, I forget which.”

Gertriss smiled. She put her arm on Evis’s shoulder again.

“Tell them the rest, won’t you?”

“Later,” he said, tapping his ear. “In private.”

She laughed.

“We have three more decks to show you,” said Evis. “If you please?”

By the time we reached the top deck, which Evis called the promenade, my feet were aching in my fancy shoes and even Gertriss was beginning to pant.

We walked every hall. Climbed every stair. Inspected every stateroom. Poked in every closet. For one awful moment I was convinced we were going to flush every toilet and test every doorknob for quality of polish and ease of use.

Whatever else Evis might love, I whispered to Darla, he loved that damned boat more.

I got a kick in the shins for my insight.

Hours passed. Bunions were born. Mouths went dry.

But I did learn a few things.

The Queen’s layout was meant to channel guests toward the casino or the half-dozen plush bars located at strategic places around the top three decks. There were no clocks anywhere in sight. Evis said this was to ensure that passengers were relaxed and unhurried. I suspected it was an effort to keep gamblers unaware of the passage of time, which might in turn remind them of the passage of their money from their pockets to the Queen’s safes.

Darla and I had a stateroom on the second deck. All the rooms there were comfortable and well appointed.

The rooms-excuse me, suites-on the next deck up were twice the size of mine, and probably came with butlers and big-eyed, half-Elf maids. The beds? You could build my house on one of those beds and have room left over for a middling-large garden.

The next deck, the promenade, was even more lavish and ornate. There were only half a dozen suites, each featuring sitting rooms and smoking rooms and bathtubs I could paddle about in-if I was fond of paddling about with irate rich people.

The only suite we couldn’t enter was the one being prepared for the Regent. It was guarded by a full dozen of his personal bodyguards, with a pair of black-robed wand-wavers hovering nearby. Flashes beneath the doors and bangs from behind the thick walls hinted at sorcerous wards being laid inside.

Evis didn’t elaborate, and neither Darla nor I asked. I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until we took a corner and were finally out of sight of the Regent’s expressionless personal guards.

“You get used to it,” said Evis in a whisper.

“I don’t plan to. She’s a lovely boat, Evis, every inch of her. I think you said something earlier about a meager meal of some sort? Cold biscuits and jerky, I think it was.”

He laughed. “All right. I can show you the rest tomorrow. Think you can find your rooms without falling overboard?”

“Probably. In any case, I can swim.”

“Well, don’t drip all over the carpet if you do. Be at the casino, near the stage, in two hours. We’ll put the chef to the test.”

I knew damned well Evis would sit behind an empty plate and sip something thick and dark from a fine crystal glass.

“Sounds good.”

A groan and a rumble rose up from somewhere deep inside the Queen. Evis bit back a cuss word and whirled to face Gertriss.

“They’re starting the engine test early,” he said. “Are you sure you want to watch?”

“Wouldn’t miss it. See you, boss, Mrs. Boss!”

Darla laughed. Evis hurried off, Gertriss on his arm, leaving us standing in an empty hall while the late afternoon sun slanted down through the ranks of windows.

“Your friend Evis seems a bit preoccupied,” said Darla. I’d started walking down the hall so that the sun was on my left. I hoped my air of confidence lent the impression I had any idea where I was going.

“He’s a vampire turned gambling magnate about to launch an untested steam-boat in a bid for political immortality. That’s enough to distract anyone.”

“Ha. You saw it too, and don’t pretend you didn’t. They’re a couple, and for some reason he’s not comfortable acknowledging it. I wonder why?”

“That I can answer. She’s four feet tall and handy with a meat cleaver. You’ll be able to hear the howls of anguish all the way downtown when Mama figures out who Gertriss is walking out with.”

“Mama’s not here, though.”

“True. But if anybody can jinx this, it’s Mama and her mouth.”

“She’s going to find out eventually.”

“Which is why friend Evis is trying to make eventually as far in the future as he can. I don’t blame him.”

“Mama’s not that bad. All she can do is bluster.”

I shook my head. We rounded a corner, came to a wide staircase, began to wind our way down it. I was glad I’d somehow missed another stroll in front of the Regent’s killing crew.

“It’s not the bluster Evis is afraid of, wife of mine. It’s the questions she’ll ask. The ones you and I and for all I know, Evis and Gertriss are avoiding.”

She was quiet for a moment, and then she took my hand.

“Oh.” We walked down in silence for a bit. “Mama would do that?”

“Hell yes, she would. I can hear her now. She’d ask Gertriss if she meant to risk getting turned, or she’d ask Evis if he planned to watch Gertriss grow old and die. She’d do it without blinking.”

“So which do you think it will be?”

“Not a clue. Not my business. Maybe they don’t know either. But the where and the when that question gets asked, if it ever does, ought to be up to them. Not Mama. But that’s not the way it will play out if Mama gets wind of this.”

We reached the next-to-the-last landing and counted room numbers until we found ours. Darla didn’t speak of Evis and Gertriss again, and neither did I.

Ever the intrepid investigator, I put my mental skills to good use by flopping down on the bed and going immediately to sleep. I felt Darla drop down beside me just before I dozed.

“I hope they’re happy, whatever they decide,” she murmured, close by my ear. “As happy as us for as long as they can be.”

“Amen,” I said, and then I slept.

We were awakened by a gentle knock at the door. A steward reminded us dinner was in three quarters of an hour, and left a silver tray and a silver coffee urn behind.

Darla bathed and applied makeup and dressed. I slumped against the headboard and drank coffee and only rose when Darla threatened to cut off my hair unless I washed it.

Somehow, we made it to the casino deck right on time. Darla was wearing a dark blue gown with ruffles at the shoulders. I’d thrown my Army dress jacket over my rumpled white shirt and put a loose knot in my best black tie.

We were greeted at the casino landing by a pair of nervous waiters.

“Right this way, sir, madam,” managed one. The other forged ahead, making a big show of moving chairs and any other potential obstacles out of our way. Darla shook her head and hid a grin.

Evis and Gertriss were already seated at a big round table near the empty stage. Mr. Lavit, the wine steward, and a dapper older gentleman in old-fashioned black tails hovered over them, fussing with glasses and exchanging hushed conversations about, I suppose, silverware and salt shakers. A trio of magelamps on head-high stands bathed the table in a pool of gentle light.

Five chairs sat about the table, and I wondered who the extra seat was for.

Evis looked up and waved at us. Gertriss did the same. They both popped out of their seats when we stepped into the magelight.

“Glad you could join us,” said Evis. He sounded like he meant it.

A somber gentleman joined us and made a small bow. “Sir, madam. I am Dutson. It will be my pleasure to serve you this evening. Madam, welcome to the Queen’s finest table.”

He pulled out Darla’s chair, and she took her place at the Queen’s finest table. I seated myself, which was apparently the signal Evis and Gertriss were waiting for because they both took their places and settled down for some serious not-smiling.

Dutson snapped his fingers and a pair of gilt-edged menus appeared. And by appeared I mean just that-they popped into existence like a stage magician’s fat white rabbit.

Being the sophisticated and urbane diner, I acknowledged this bit of sorcerous whimsy with a nod and focused on the menu.

The lettering glowed. The little drawing of the Queen at the bottom puffed real smoke and paddled its way slowly across the paper as I read. There wasn’t a price anywhere in sight lest, I supposed, diners of meager means throw themselves overboard by the dozen.

Dutson extolled the virtues of the evening’s specials, describing each in rapt tones priests strive for but rarely achieve. Darla nodded and smiled and even asked a few questions. I fought back the urge to demand a ham sandwich on plain white bread and studied the beer offerings instead.

Evis wound up ordering for everyone, which was probably best because I couldn’t pronounce half the dishes. I made a silent vow to order a sandwich and vampire dining propriety be damned if Dutson returned with anything that moved or still had its eyes.

Wine glasses were placed before us, and were filled by a nervous young man who could use more sunlight. Evis swirled his drink around in his glass and frowned at it, as though the beverage had somehow given insult. Gertriss guffawed and lifted her glass and took a long sip.

“It’s good,” she said to Darla. “Ignore Evis. He thinks he has an educated nose.”

Evis was about to defend the discernment of his nostrils when all hell broke loose.

Red lamps hidden away in the Queen’s ceiling trim began to flash. Horns blew. Men shouted and other men answered, and by the time Darla set her wine glass down we were ringed by a dozen black-clad Avalante soldiers who put their backs to our table and kept their long guns pointed out into the dark.

Evis rose, all business, speaking into a smooth black box he held to his ear.

Gertriss took another sip of wine before casually brandishing a twin to the silver gun she’d given Darla.

I filled my own hand with the latest in projectile weaponry, and was pleased to see that Darla had done the same, making the Queen’s finest dining table also its most heavily armed, and all before the salads were served.

Evis went pale. That’s no small feat for a man with skin the color of a white onion.

Gertriss clutched at his elbow. “What is it?”

And then I heard over the sounding of the horns and the shouts of Avalante’s dark army, the sound of Mama Hog’s voice, lifted in a snit.

“I tell ye I was invited!”

Evis lowered his talking box. “You didn’t,” he said to me.

“No. I didn’t.” Then I thought back to the previous day when I’d asked Mama to come around for supper. “Oh no. Evis. I think maybe I did.”

The glare Gertriss turned on me would have felled a full-grown goat.

“I invited her to join us for supper,” I said. “I had no idea I’d be here on the Queen tonight.”

“That apparently hasn’t stopped her.” Evis took in a long deep breath, perhaps out of habit or perhaps out of a rare need to breathe. “I’ll send word to let her aboard. Gertriss, I’ll see you later.”

She didn’t let go. “This is your boat. Your house. Your table. If you go, I go.”

Mama’s raucous shouting grew closer.

“Now? Are you sure?”

Give the woman credit. She managed a smile, and sat back down, and left her hand right where it was.

“Let her in,” said Evis, to no one I could see. “Tell Dutson to set another place.”

Darla’s gun vanished. I put mine back in my pocket. Evis pulled his out and idly checked the cylinder, presumably to make sure it was loaded. Gertriss frowned and he put it away.

We heard Mama long before we saw her squat silhouette appear in the grand doors between the staircases. Hell, half the Hill heard Mama coming and probably hid, thinking the Trolls had reconsidered the Truce and decided to attack Rannit after all.

“Mama,” I called, rising. “We’re in here. No need to shout. Come on in.”

Mama appeared, huffing and puffing, flanked by a pair of Ogres and a slight robed figure I couldn’t quite place.

“Well, you’d think I was tryin’ to push a chair under the Regent’s table for all the ruckus raised,” said Mama in a voice just below a screech. “What harm could one poor old woman do to a fancy barge like this?”

“Mama, would you prefer beer or wine?”

“Beer. Wine is for layabouts and ne’er-do-wells.” She stomped closer. The Ogres halted just outside the doors. The slight figure to her right glided wordlessly on, a full hood obscuring his or her face.

“Beer it is.” The ring of soldiers vanished with all the fuss and noise of a single falling feather. Dutson appeared, a waiter with a chair in tow.

“Will Madam care to peruse our beer menu?”

Mama hove into view, frowning and breathing hard.

“Just fetch me a damned beer,” she said before fixing her bright little Hog eyes on me. “Well, ain’t you hard to find these days?”

Unperturbed, Dutson motioned Mama into a chair while the silent figure at her side took the other seat.

“Sorry, Mama. We hadn’t planned to board so soon. Had some unforeseen business-”

“Oh, I knows all about your business, boy. They cleaned up your house right well, but I can see new blood in the moonlight, I can.” Mama eyed me up and down. “They cut you good?”

“Good enough. I’ll live. Thanks to Evis here.”

Mama didn’t glance his way, but she did aim a quick frown at Gertriss, who did a passable job of frowning defiantly right back.

“I come to tell you there’s people watching your house, watchin’ your office,” said Mama. “I say people, but I reckon strictly speakin’ they ain’t people at all.”

She is remarkably perceptive, said Stitches. She pulled back her hood far enough that I could see a blank white mask covering her face. You have the most fascinating friends, Mr. Markhat.

“How many, Mama?”

“Two each place,” she replied. Dutson returned with a glass of beer and placed it at Mama’s hand. “Them there hollow women. They just walks back and forth, watchin’ and waitin’, I reckon.” She picked up the glass and drained it noisily before wiping foam off her chin with her sleeve. “That ain’t half bad, boy. Reckon I’ll have another, thank ye very much.”

Dutson nodded and went to fetch more.

“We can have them picked up,” said Evis. “Might even get these whole.”

I doubt they will allow themselves to be apprehended and studied, said Stitches. Still. They could perhaps be disabled before they are aware they are under attack.

“There’s other things watchin’ your house, too,” said Mama. “I ain’t seen it good yet. About the size of a house-cat. Climbs like a squirrel. Kind of reddish-like.”

“I told you I saw Mr. Simmons,” I said.

“Boy, are you listening? I said it was the size of a house-cat.”

“And red and it climbs like a squirrel. What did you call it, Miss Stitches? An elemental construct?”

Stitches nodded. Intriguing. I would estimate its intelligence at only slightly more than that of a dog. Perhaps it imprinted on you during our visit to the house, Mr. Markhat.

“That might explain why it’s hanging around. But it doesn’t explain how it knew to spit an antidote to poison in my eyes.”

No. That remains a mystery, if indeed it took place at all.

“Boy, who you talking to?”

“Never mind.”

Dutson brought a crystal pitcher of beer and placed it on the table. Mama snatched it up and poured before he had a chance to grasp the handle.

“Evis,” I said, “seen any of these woman hanging around the Queen?”

“No, and I’d have turned a brace of cannon on them if we had.” He frowned and put his fingertips together. “Stitches, any chance Markhat here could be located using sorcerous means?”

Anything is possible, Mr. Prestley. But locating Mr. Markhat is so close to being impossible I’m willing to assert that no sorcerer or group of sorcerers alive could come close. The Queen is well nigh impregnable from an arcane viewpoint.

Evis thought for a moment. “All right. Stitches, put together a plan to snatch the new brunettes. Whatever resources you need, I’ll authorize them.”

Before or after we host the Regent?

“Before. If Markhat’s troubles and our maiden voyage are related, I want to know it now, not halfway to Bel Loit.”

Might it not be prudent to consider leaving Mr. Markhat behind, in case his pursuers persist?

“It might.” Evis pulled his fingertips apart and sat up straight. “And it might be that’s what someone is hoping for. No. We grab them now.”

As you wish.

Mama poured another beer and glared at the empty white china before her.

“So, what’s for dinner?”

Dinner, all five courses of it, was a feast.

Stitches sat so silent and still I began to wonder if anyone but Evis and I were even aware of her presence. There was no plate set before her and I pondered briefly how she took in sustenance, if not through her mouth.

Across from her, Mama chopped and hacked and smacked and burped her way through each culinary masterpiece, offering up her own earthy critique as she went. Evis was so distracted he almost put a forkful of beef in his mouth. Gertriss hardly touched her meal, aside from occasional savage stabs that always seemed to coincide with one of Mama’s grand pronouncements concerning the lackluster state of talent in Avalante’s kitchens.

Darla and I ignored Mama as best we could and attended to the serious business of dining on Avalante’s largess with all the attention we could muster.

There was a salad, which was as good as a pile of lettuce sprinkled with nuts and cherry tomatoes can possibly be. There was a steak, which was better than any steak I’d ever dreamed of, much less consumed. There were green beans and squash and sticks made of potatoes which were then fried until they were crispy, salted, and served.

I hadn’t expected such hearty fare. I would have said so, too, but Mama was still holding court and steering the conversation, untroubled by the chunk of steak she’d just shoved into her wide Hog mouth.

“Like I was sayin’, boy, they cleaned up your house right good. Hung the door back, even. I reckon your fool neighbors are believin’ them tales about street kids and fireworks.”

“Easier to believe than the truth.”

Mama waved a forkful of green beans at me. “And just what is the truth, boy? That you were set upon by unholy critters raised up by them what we is all warned never to name?”

“Mama.” Gertriss put down her empty fork. “Couldn’t we talk about something else?”

“Why should we? You goin’ to hide on this boat forever, are ye? Eatin’ meals you ain’t paid for, keepin’ company with folks who is likely the root of your troubles?”

Mama was staring at me when she spoke, but Gertriss reddened like she’d been slapped.

“That’s enough.” I glared. “Mama. I’ve known you since the War. I cannot believe you’d stoop to insulting a man’s table with a mouth full of his supper.”

“I ain’t insulting him,” said Mama. She turned her gaze toward Stitches. “Oh, I sees you, right enough. And what I can’t see I can surmise. Fancy wand-waver, thinkin’ she’d make a mock of old Mama! Well, old I may be, but I ain’t blind. Not where it counts. I sees you, all wrapped up in shadows. Might as well come out and say how-do-ye-do all polite like.”

Stitches shrugged, and though she didn’t change at all to my eyes Mama crowed in triumph.

“I knowed it! Boy, I’ve seen this one pokin’ around too, thinkin’ she walked all hid in the dark.” Mama snapped her greasy fingers. “Ha!”

Well done, Mrs. Hog. Stitches reached up and removed her mask, revealing her sewn-shut eyes and lips. Not one in ten thousand professional sorcerers could have seen through my glamour. May I inquire as to how you accomplished this?

Mama puffed up like a well-fed jaybird.

“I keeps special moon-blessed water in a wash pot out back,” she said. “Them puddles in the sidewalk you stepped over? I could see your reflection, plain as day.”

Stitches nodded. Intriguing. I believed myself safe from such a stratagem. Would you be willing to divulge the precise nature of your blessing? I would compensate you for the information, of course.

Mama cackled. “Well, ain’t this a historical occasion! The likes of you, wantin’ to pay the likes of me.” She pretended to consider the offer for a moment, chewing noisily as she paused. “Well, and mainly because this is a damn fine cut o’ beef, I’ll take yer coin.”

Excellent. Shall we take to the deck so that we may speak privately?

“I would sure enjoy one of them fancy cigars,” said Mama. Evis slid one across the table without comment.

“Thankee very much,” said Mama, winking at me as she rose. “We gots to talk business.”

Stitches rose as well, following Mama through the doors and onto the Queen’s wide deck.

Gertriss let out her breath in a heartfelt sigh. Evis drained his glass, put it down, and drained it yet again as soon as Dutson refilled it.

“Going to have to give Stitches a raise,” he said.

“You think she let Mama see her?”

“Hell yes, she let Mama see her. No offense, Markhat, Gertriss, but Stitches is a Corps-worthy talent. Mama knows a trick or two, no doubt, but-”

“Somebody’s being played,” I agreed. I wasn’t quite so sure Mama was the one being deceived. “So, some old spook is still watching my house. Troubling.”

“That it is. But I wouldn’t panic just yet. We’ll find out who’s behind this. If they’re after the huldra, I’m sure we can think of a way to convince them you haven’t got it.”

I nodded, more for Darla’s benefit than because I believed any such thing.

“The meal has been marvelous,” said Darla. “Dutson, I hope you’ll tell the kitchen staff I said so. I’ve never had a better supper, and that’s the truth.”

He smiled a refined, close-lipped smile. “Very good, madam. I shall inform them. We are happy to have been of service.”

Evis motioned for a refill. Gertriss shot him a look but didn’t speak.

I put my napkin down by my empty plate and stood. “My dear, I believe friend Stitches might soon need rescuing. Would you care for a moonlit stroll on the deck? I hear the spinnakers are lovely in the moonlight.”

Darla rose. “Evis. Gertriss. Good evening, if we don’t see you again tonight.”

Both wished us the same. Neither put much heart into it. Dutson, seeing the lay of the land, ambled quietly away.

The Ogres still flanked the main doors, their big owl eyes gleaming and alert in the dark. “Good evening, gents,” I said, dipping my own eyes in a display of good Ogre manners. “Which way did they go? The small woman and the loud one?”

Four owl eyes darted right. I put Darla’s hand in the crook of my elbow and turned to the left.

“I thought we were going to save Miss Stitches,” she whispered.

“Ha. I’m pretty sure neither her nor Mama needs saving.”

Darla laughed and sidled up close beside me. She smelled of the fancy, peach-scented soap we’d found in the bathroom. “So was that an excuse just to get me out on the deck alone?”

“My brilliant plot is undone,” I said. “Woe is me.”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

Being the obliging sort, I obliged. I may have obliged four or five times before we both heard Mama’s raucous laughter rise up into the night.

“Mama’s made a friend,” murmured Darla.

“Too bad it wasn’t Evis.” I shifted a bit, because something nautical was pressing uncomfortably into the small of my back, and that’s when I saw a familiar small, blonde banshee peek around a stack of crates at the far end of the Queen’s private wharf.

Darla followed my gaze. We waited a moment, and there she was again, glowing faintly this time.

“Dammit.”

“It’s no good locking her in,” said Darla. “And with all of us here…”

“We’d better find Mama. Angels know what might happen if Buttercup tries to board.”

Darla pulled away and we made for the sound of Mama’s laughter at a trot.

We hadn’t gotten halfway when Buttercup simply appeared, right in front of us.

She hugged my legs and squealed. Darla caught her up and held her close.

We waited.

Lightning did not flare. Walls of flame failed to rise roaring up around us. No horns blew. No black-clad Avalante soldiers surrounded us with guns.

Buttercup giggled and squirmed.

“So much for the Queen being impregnable,” I muttered.

“I’ll keep her here. Surely Mama can get her home.”

“She’d better.” I pretended to steal Buttercup’s nose, and she played along, grabbing and laughing.

“Back in a flash,” I said, and I was off.

I made for the sound of Mama’s voice at a run. Buttercup had just breached the best defenses Avalante could muster without any apparent effort. While Evis was practically an uncle to the banshee, his bosses might not prove so charitable, if they ever learned of her abilities.

Mama and Stitches were leaning against the rail, looking out at the sluggish waters of the Brown. Mama’s cigar glowed red in the dark. Stitches had pulled back her hood, so the cool night air blew over her ruined face.

“You should have brung a cigar, boy,” said Mama. “‘Cause I ain’t sharing this here one.”

“She behaving herself?”

We have had a delightful chat. Missus Hog is privy to a practice I thought long dead.

“I’m privy to lots of things.” Mama sucked at the cigar and blew a perfect smoke ring, better than any Evis ever made. “Folks would do well to remember that.”

Indeed. Stitches pulled her hood up before she turned to face me. Good evening, Missus Hog, Mr. Markhat. I have work to do.

“Good evenin’ to you too,” said Mama, between puffs. Stitches glided away, more ghost than girl.

“She musta been a good looker before she done all that sewin’ on her face,” said Mama.

I made frantic shushing noises. Stitches wasn’t twenty feet away.

Mama guffawed. “Oh, settle down. She ain’t likely to swat at me for speakin’ the truth. That niece of mine send you out here?”

I leaned on the rail myself. “Gertriss and Evis left right after you did. Probably looking for someplace with a nice thick door. But that’s not why I’m here. Buttercup just joined us.”

“Damn. I thought I had her put down for a nap.”

“Well, she woke up and strolled all the way across town before skipping right through Angels know how many wards and spells hung around the Queen. I’d rather keep that bit a secret, Mama. We don’t want Avalante deciding they need to do any research on banshees and their sneaky little feet, do we?”

“I don’t reckon even a Dark House could keep that there banshee anywhere she don’t want to be kept. But I sees your point. I’ll take her on home.”

“Thanks.”

Mama grinned suddenly, her bright little eyes dancing in the moonlight.

“Boy, did you see how Evis and my niece were a squirmin, and a sweatin’ all through supper?”

“Mama, look-”

She held up her hand and took a long draw from the cigar. “Don’t you ‘Mama look’ me, boy. You think I don’t know where that niece of mine stays all hours? You think I don’t know who’s she’s keepin’ company with, and why?”

“This isn’t the time, Mama.”

“Ain’t ever gonna be a good time, boy. You know I don’t approve.”

“You don’t? What a surprise.”

“And you think since I don’t approve I’d give them all manner of perdition, is that it?”

Darla peeked around the corner. Buttercup saw me and waved.

“Well, maybe you don’t know old Mama as well as ye think you do. ‘Cause I don’t plan on raising no fuss over matters that ain’t none of my business in the first place. So you can tell that niece of mine she can stop sneakin’ around. She’s family, boy. Only family I got. I ain’t ready to lose that over her choice of beau.”

I motioned for Darla to join us.

“That’s very open minded of you, Mama.”

“Ain’t got much choice, do I?”

Buttercup saw Mama and leaped from Darla’s arms, racing toward Mama without bothering to put her dainty banshee feet anywhere near the Queen’s fresh-scrubbed deck.

“What are you doin’ out of bed, you barefoot devil?” croaked Mama without malice. “What are we going to do with you, child?”

Buttercup kissed Mama on her cheek and started running in circles around her.

“Thank you for the meal,” said Mama. She took a final puff from her cigar before throwing the remnants out into the river. “We’d best be getting home.”

She took Buttercup by the hand, and off they went.

Darla and I watched them go.

“Did Mama mention Gertriss and Evis?”

I nodded. “She did. Claimed she wasn’t planning on causing any trouble. Said it was none of her business.”

Darla raised an eyebrow.

“Think she’s telling the truth?”

“Not a chance.”

“I hope you’re wrong. They’ve got enough to worry about without Mama causing trouble.”

“I hope I’m wrong too. That’s bound to happen someday, you know.”

“What is?”

“Me being wrong.”

She kissed me, right there on the riverfront, where passing barge-hands could have seen-had it been daylight, and had any barges been passing.

I risked public scandal by kissing her right back.

It must have been the moonlight.

Chapter Nine

Life aboard a boat takes on its own unique cadence.

Mornings, for instance. Bells rouse the crew from slumber. The crew, once roused, proceed to swarm the decks performing various nautical tasks, all of which involve swearing, banging, stomping, and more swearing, usually followed by a spirited round of beating on one heavy iron thing with another.

Darla and I took to burying our heads beneath our pillows, which more or less worked until the engine crew began the day’s piston test. That shook the Queen from bow to stern and, on two occasions, filled the hallways with thick clouds of smoke.

We never moved, and the Queen’s massive red paddle wheel never turned. Evis remained confident, waving off my concerns with a grin and a shrug. “It’s a new boat, Markhat,” he said. “Plenty of time to get her ready.”

By my count, the Queen was set to take aboard her well-heeled passengers and steam for Bel Loit in eight short days. Given that the Queen was still full of ladders and workmen and a betting pool had emerged on the question of whether the big red paddle wheel would turn or strip her gears, I decided Evis’s nonchalance was forced, if not outright fabricated.

But, as Darla pointed out, that wasn’t my concern.

I made it my concern to memorize the Queen’s layout and get to know as many of her crew as I could. So I did what some say is what I do best and made a nuisance of myself.

I wandered the Queen’s gangways, drink in hand, and accosted anyone foolish enough to stand still. Then I asked whatever questions came to mind-how much coal were we storing, how many Ogres work below decks, where can I get another glass of beer, and so on.

I wasn’t so much interested in their answers as I was the way in which they answered.

Only the Queen’s good captain, a grey-bearded gent named Samuels, with piercing blue eyes and a soft voice, invited me to get the hell out of his way so he could get to work, and I could damned well find my own way to the nearest beer-barrel.

The rest ran the gamut from obsequious toad to surly coal-shovel man. None broke down and confessed to any dastardly plots under the sheer intensity of my steely glare, and I lamented this sad fact to Darla on the evening of our fourth day aboard the Queen.

She put down her book and smiled at me over the tops of her reading glasses.

“Perhaps, dear, you aren’t drinking enough beer.”

I sat down on the bed beside her.

“The beer is just for show. People are more likely to talk if they think the man they’re talking to is a bit tipsy.”

Her expression didn’t change.

“I met the Captain today. We had quite a nice chat. Seems to be a competent sailor, and more importantly, he has a well-trimmed white beard.”

“I heard he nearly had you clapped in irons.”

I imitated Evis and his dismissive wave. “That’s just how us old sea-dogs talk. I’m very nearly first mate. Maybe even boatswain.”

“What exactly is a boatswain, dear?”

“And just how did you hear anything, new bride of mine? I thought you were going to spend the day reading.”

“I have my secrets.”

“So how is Gertriss, since Mama’s little visit?”

“Troubled. Evis?”

“Evis is Evis. Not a care in the world. Should he be worried?”

She took off her glasses and laid them on her book. “We should all be worried, I imagine. Any news from your friend Miss Stitches and our woman problem?”

“None yet.” I laid down and stretched. Bones popped. “Did you bring that fancy pocket-watch Evis gave you as a wedding present?”

“I did.”

“Good. I want us to take a stroll or two later on. From one end of the Queen to the other, from deck to deck, all around.”

“Why, pray tell?”

“Where did all those soldiers come from when Mama showed up?”

“I’ve wondered that too. But it was dark and they’re halfdead. They could have been standing in the shadows all along.”

“I thought that too, at first.”

“But not now.”

“Not now. Avalante isn’t going to station armed halfdead in every corner once the casino is open. No, they had to have another way of moving from place to place.”

“Why not just ask Evis?”

“I will. But only after I know the answer.”

“And men claim women are needlessly indirect.”

“I’m thinking like a villain. A villain wouldn’t ask Evis. They’d observe, find a weakness to exploit.”

Darla grinned and rested her head on my chest. “So you’re a villain, aboard the Queen under false pretense. How would you go about causing trouble?”

“Fire. I’d just set a few fires, and hope to stab someone important in all the confusion.” Even alone in our room, neither of us cared to mention the Regent by name.

“That sounds dreadful. But effective, I suppose.”

“Not at all. The Queen is equipped with pumps and pipes-if a fire starts, she gets doused with river-water. People get wet, meals are ruined, but no one burns.”

“Let me try, then.” She thought for a moment. “Poison. I’d get into the kitchen somehow and poison a dish.”

“Some people will bring their own tasters and wand-wavers.”

“Quite a few won’t. And if half the dining room fell over dead, well, that would be trouble for Avalante, wouldn’t it?”

I stroked her hair and nodded. “Good point. Remind me to prepare my own supper from now on.”

“Hah. So what were you thinking, if not fire or poison?”

“I’d have a brace of cannon waiting just north of Bel Loit. Open fire and hope for the best.”

“I hope Evis has thought of that.”

“He has. Claims the Queen has anti-cannon spells, and that they’ve got patrols out on both sides of the Brown.”

“You don’t seem reassured.”

“Haven’t seen a wand-waver yet who could stop a volley of cannon fire.”

She was silent for a moment. I nearly drifted off but Darla shook me awake.

“Let’s go for that stroll you promised,” she said. “I’ll get the pocket-watch. You should shave or they might mistake you for an Ogre and ask you to shovel coal.”

I stroked my chin. “I’m more likely to make Captain if I grow a beard.”

Darla rose. “Well, until you do, you’re still my husband the finder, and I’m bored, so let’s go find something.” She predicted my thoughts. “Something that isn’t beer.”

I sat up and yawned. “Yes, dear.”

She darted into our bathroom and threw a towel out at me. “There you are, Captain.”

I rose and found my razor.

A leisurely stroll from the Queen’s blunt bow to her shiny red wheel took all of four minutes on the wide outdoor deck that surrounds the casino’s stained glass windows. The same walk through the second deck’s cherry-paneled halls took three and half.

I made it in two at a run. Add a flight of stairs and a pair of inquisitive Avalante foot soldiers, and it’s a hair over two and a quarter minutes.

Going from the casino to the Regent’s well-guarded rooms takes three minutes if you’re not in a hurry. The looks we got from the wand-wavers stationed there suggested people who arrived in a hurry might meet with the kind of reception that leaves ugly stains on the floor.

Darla spoke. “So what did all that prove?”

We leaned on the rail and watched the sluggish Brown River flow.

“Double those times, if the boat is full. Triple them if there’s a panic and a rush.” I took off my hat and let the breeze dry my sweaty forehead. “That’s the weak spot I was looking for. The stairs are bottlenecks. Catch a certain someone in his room. Raise a ruckus somehow. You’ve got a good five minutes before Avalante can shove halfdead soldiers in your face. That’s a lot of time for mischief, my dear. A lot of time.”

Darla nodded and put her hand on mine. “Surely they’ve thought of that?”

“They did. And they came up with a solution. I’m just not sure it’s good enough.”

“We saw a dozen armed vampires appear out of nowhere the instant an alarm was raised.”

I put my hat back on. “That we did. But the place was empty. And if my guess is correct, they probably can’t keep more than half a dozen halfdead anywhere near our special guest’s room.”

“There are hiding places in the walls?”

“Have to be. All that fancy wood trim? All those burnished cherry panels? I can’t think of a better way to hide a sneaky door.”

Darla reddened. “If I find a single peep-hole into our room I’m going to stuff Evis into one of his boilers.”

“I’ll help. Let’s go find a secret door and see where it leads.”

“We’ll need a candle and some matches.”

“And beer. We might get lost and wander for days.”

“That’s why I married a ham-fisted brute, dear. So you can break down doors before I get thirsty.”

I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out a box of matches and a pair of new candles. “Look what I found. What a coincidence.”

Darla laughed, grabbed the end of my tie, and we went in search of the Queen’s hidden passages.

Finding the first trick door took all of an hour. Some master craftsman had concealed the doorframe so cleverly I couldn’t see it even after I’d convinced myself it was there.

But there it was, in plain sight. Finding the hidden latch and getting it open took another twenty minutes.

Explaining what we were doing opening a secret door to the wary halfdead gunmen who spilled out of the dark required a mere five minutes, and culminated in an even briefer conversation with a bleary-eyed Evis through his barely-opened door.

“I wondered how long it would take you to find them,” he muttered after a whispered exchange with his fellows. “You might as well come on in. Got word that Stitches hit the brunettes. Waiting for news now.”

The halfdead gunmen left without a backward glance. Evis vanished from his door, leaving it cracked. I heard him shuffling around in his dark room, and then a lamp flared.

“I’m decent,” he called. We opened his door and stepped inside.

Evis’s suite had no windows. Every wall was lined with books and scrolls and charts. A big, plain, oak desk sat in the middle of the room, covered with papers. A green glass magelamp hung above the desk, simulating twilight. There was a short couch and two comfy high-backed padded chairs and what I hoped was an icebox for keeping beer in a corner.

Evis closed the only other door, which I assumed led to the adjoining bedroom. A sliver of light showed at the bottom, and if Darla and I saw a brief shadow pass across it, we both pretended we’d been looking elsewhere.

“Sorry to roust you out at this hour,” I said.

He shrugged and motioned for us to sit. We took the couch. He collapsed in a chair and turned to face us. “So you found the dunways.”

“Dunways? The hidden doors?”

“Technically, the passages behind the doors. But yes. Well done. What tipped you off?” His eyes glinted in the dim light until he reached for his spectacles and put them on.

“Best way to move armed staff around without causing a fuss,” I said.

“Also good for accidentally overhearing private conversations,” said Darla.

“The dunways are strictly for security on this trip,” said Evis.

“How many guns will you have hidden in the walls, Evis?”

“Sixty-two. All highly trained. All absolutely fearless. Feel better?”

“Some.” I pretended not to see that pesky shadow race across the bottom of Evis’s door again. “Might as well have sixty-two men on the moon if they’re not in the right place at the right time.”

Evis looked toward Darla. “He’s cute when he’s grumpy, isn’t he?”

“So, what’s this about Stitches?”

“Don’t know yet. She said she had a scheme to grab the hex women, whatever they’re called.”

“The bentans?”

“Yeah. Them. I got word she took a couple of wagons and a dozen staff before sunup this morning, and now I hear she’s back at Avalante with a wagonload of bodies.”

A soft knock sounded at the door. “Enter,” shouted Evis.

Stitches herself stepped through the door.

Her robe stank of wood smoke. Her sleeves were scorched and torn. When she pulled back her hood to reveal her face, it was black with soot.

Her bleeding lips, though, were trying to form a smile.

Good. You are here. Mrs. Markhat.

“You look like hell,” said Evis. “Sit, if you want.”

I believe I shall. The day has been taxing. She crossed to the vacant chair and settled gingerly into it, as though favoring numerous injuries. I got them. All of them.

“The bentans?”

Yes. I know who made them, Mr. Prestley. I know who, and I believe I know why.

“Spill it.”

I shall. But first-

She raised her hands and traced out a complicated pattern in the air. There was a sound, and for an instant her fingertips left visible trails of light.

She clapped her hands and the luminous pattern faded away.

Precautions. The living simulacrums were animated by the hand of Hag Mary herself. I trust you are acquainted with the name, Mr. Prestley?

I didn’t like the way Evis went suddenly stiff and still.

“That’s just a legend.”

I fear it is not. Hag Mary lived, and lives still, and something has stirred her to send these bentans against Mr. Markhat.

“I hate to interrupt, but what the hell is a Hag Mary, and what have I ever done to her?”

Evis turned his dark spectacles toward me. “Hag Mary. One of the worst of the old-time sorcerers. This is pre-Kingdom stuff, Markhat. Prehistoric. Hag Mary was said to be a fallen Angel, gone mad with being cast down with us mortals.”

Nonsense. Stitches finally relaxed enough to settle back into her chair. Fallen Angels?

“You don’t believe in Angels?”

As I said, nonsense. But whatever her origin, Hag Mary was indeed, for a time, a powerful, formidable sorceress. Her obsession with the Old Ones was her undoing, though, and she spiraled down into madness-both figuratively and literally.

“How so?”

She began to excavate a series of prehistoric ruins that lay below Rannit. Deeper and deeper she dug, until she just vanished from sight. Eventually, from memory.

“You’re sure it’s her that raised the bentans?”

Her house is long ago fallen, but a number of her personal possessions remained behind. I acquired a minor item myself, some years ago. It retains an arcane signature, one that is an exact match to the one that animates the bentans. There is no mistake. Hag Mary raised those creatures, and Hag Mary set them upon you.

Darla took my hand. “Why? Why would this…creature do such a thing?”

I suspect Hag Mary is merely being used. If she was quite insane a millennia ago, she is a gibbering lunatic now-one without the measure of reason required to plot against your husband, Mrs. Markhat, or anyone else. No. Her powers are still formidable, but I doubt they are her own. Someone, or a group of persons, is fearful that Markhat still holds the huldra. Without the Corpsemaster to subdue Markhat, or for that matter to shield him, they have decided to take it, using the most powerful tool they have. Hag Mary.

“If I had the damned thing, I’d have used it by now. Can’t they see that?”

Their brand of rationality is hardly compatible with your own, Mr. Markhat. You pose a threat. They seek to eliminate that threat. Most curious, though, is the timing.

“Our little dinner cruise.” Evis cussed. “You think this is all connected to the presence of our special guest.”

The Corpsemaster, right hand of the Regency, is fallen. Creatures more ancient than history are stirring. It bears consideration, Mr. Prestley. Careful consideration.

“We should call it off.” Evis’s words were barely more than a whisper. “Claim engine trouble. Claim anything.”

“We can’t live here forever,” said Darla. Her grip on my hand was painful. “There has to be a way to prove he wrecked that awful thing!”

I fear the only way to satiate them is to produce a huldra. Produce it, and give it to them.

“I don’t suppose we can just have Mama whip up a batch, can we?” I asked.

I would be surprised if three more remain in all the world. And crafting even a dubious facsimile of such a thing is well beyond my skill, and indeed, beyond the skill of anyone alive. No. You shall have to find another huldra, Markhat. It is the only way.

Evis appeared to conclude an intense internal debate.

“We can’t go on with this, knowing that the Regent is probably the target of a coup.” He rose. “I’ve got to speak to the House elders. Stitches, Markhats, make yourselves at home. We’ll talk later.”

And then he vanished into his back room. The light beneath the door went out.

Stitches pulled her hood down so that it hid her ruined eyes.

The day’s exertions have been significant. I trust you will forgive my urgent need for rest.

With that she went limp and still.

“We’ll just have to find another huldra,” said Darla, Her voice was cheerful and light, but she forgot to ease her grip on my hand. “Evis will help.”

I rose. Evis’s icebox beckoned.

“Bring me one too,” said Darla. She forced a smile. “We might as well make ourselves at home.”

I found a dozen unlabeled bottles of some honey-colored beer, wiped the sawdust off two, and opened them both before offering one to Darla and then holding up mine for a toast.

“To life aboard the Brown River Queen,” quoth I. “Where the beds are always soft and the beer is always free.”

Darla shrugged and joined me in the toast.

Chapter Ten

My mother was a strong critic of idle hands. And so, despite Evis’s vow to postpone the Queen’s maiden voyage until sometime after the Last Trump, I set about earning my exorbitant pay.

I grabbed crew at random and hustled them into a tiny room behind the purser’s sparse office. There was barely room enough for two straight-backed wooden chairs and a tiny stand for my notebook. I grilled my hapless victims on their employment history, their political leanings, and their overall nefarious countenances.

I raised some hackles and came close to going to bed with a broken nose, but again I found nothing but a couple of closet whisky-fanciers and a steward who’d spent a few nights in the Old Ruth for breaking a couple of windows during the mob riots last spring.

I had to give Evis and his staff their due. They’d taken great pains to hire people who were either fiercely loyal to Avalante, deeply terrified of Avalante, or both. There’d be no slipping a handful of coppers among them to buy a few moments of looking the other way. No, the purchase of even the slightest act of disloyalty was going to cost someone a fortune.

Normally, I’d have been encouraged by this. But the kind of people likely to be handing out the coins in this instance simply wouldn’t care.

I consoled myself with my near certainty that the Queen would not soon be departing for Bel Loit or anywhere else, at least not with the Regent aboard. The man didn’t assume sudden and complete control over Rannit by being an imbecile.

So I walked the decks and tried in vain to pry open a trace of treachery and sat my butt down to some of the finest meals I’ve ever enjoyed. Darla read and started scribbling furiously in a notebook that had a dainty little clasp and a clever little lock. I tried to catch sight of her writings over her shoulder a time or two, but she always heard me coming and slammed the notebook shut before I caught a glimpse.

“That’s my little secret,” was all she would say.

The next day, and the next, passed in that manner. We saw neither Evis nor Gertriss, which only confirmed Darla’s assertion that they had set up housekeeping together.

It was the day after that, right before dusk, that a shrill new whistle blew three times, just as Dutson was setting our table near the stage.

Waiters and busboys and cooks and carpenters all began to rush past, hurrying toward the doors and the open deck beyond it. None looked alarmed. Even Dutson sported a sudden smile.

“That signals the final piston and boiler test,” he said in reply to the question I hadn’t had time to ask. “Might I suggest we delay our repast for a short time? The Queen will be taking to the river under her own power if all goes well.”

Darla and I rose as one. The Queen began to hum and shake beneath our feet. The sounds of metal groaning and ironwood beams popping filled the silent casino.

“This I want to see,” said Darla. I was glad to watch a genuine smile cross her face.

I moved toward the door, Dutson at my side.

“So how much do you stand to gain, and which way did you bet?”

He didn’t bother with a blustered denial.

“Ten crowns,” he said. “And she’ll be setting forth, mark my words, sir. These men know their business, even if no one else does. Her wheel will turn.”

We pushed our way onto the crowded deck. I made room for Darla and cleared us a spot right by the rail.

The starboard side of the Queen’s bright red paddle wheel was just barely visible from where we stood. The wharf and the gangway were on the port side, so we looked out on nothing but the wide, sluggish face of the Brown, which flowed serenely past as if nothing of note was taking place.

The horn sounded again, three more times. Dutson grinned and gripped the rail.

“Here we go, sir.”

A throbbing hum, pitched too low to be called a roar and too powerful to be ignored, rose up through the deck. The throbbing intensified, building and falling in a slow, measured rhythm, rapidly transforming from a throatless growl to a thum-thum-thum reminiscent of the beating of some great unhurried heart.

The Queen’s blunt bow was right against the dock. I saw ropes flying, cast off by a horde of scurrying deck hands, and I realized the Queen’s first movements would have to be both backwards and against the current.

The deck shuddered. There came the sound of steel against steel, the sudden piercing hiss of steam, and then the thum-thum-thum doubled in pace and then doubled again. Then, with a clank and a roar, the Queen’s new red wheel began to thrash and turn.

She bit the Brown and took hold, and damned if we didn’t back easily out into the river and make a flawless half-turn, putting the Queen’s face north.

Her boilers burned and her pistons reached and her wheel reversed and we moved against the river, leaving behind a pair of smoke-trails and sparks.

The deck exploded in cheers. I didn’t spot a long face in the crowd, despite the losses in the betting pool I knew many of them just suffered. Fists were raised and hats were waved and a pair of sooty firemen even danced a brief jig right there in the sun.

Dutson, ever the model of polite decorum, observed the celebrations with only the faintest ghost of a grin. “As I said, sir, they know their business.”

The breeze shifted, bringing with it a mist of spray from the Queen’s churning wheel. The sound of it, even near the bow, was that of ten thousand open hands all slapping the water over and over in some bizarre game of Splash the Finder.

“I shall see to your table, sir. Please spend as long as you like above. This is a rare fine sight.”

“It’s history.” Evis spoke, right behind me, and I turned to face him. “Welcome to the Age of Steam, Markhat. Let’s hope we live long enough to enjoy it.”

He was clad in his usual daytime attire-yards and yards of black silk, which lent him the appearance of a storybook haunt, aside from the expensive leather shoes with spats, his hat, and his dark-tinted spectacles. Something in the way he slumped against the rail told me his face would be weary, if any of it were visible.

A pair of uniformed engineers ran up, all smiles. One shook my hand though I’m sure he didn’t remember me and the other chattered to Evis about reach rods and doctor pumps.

Evis raised a gloved hand. “Thank you, Mr. Blevins. Tell the bridge crew I’ll join them in the wheelhouse in a moment.”

“The whistle, sir?”

Evis hadn’t been listening either.

“The Captain wants to know if we can sound her whistles, sir.”

Evis slumped even further. “Certainly,” he said. “Blow it long and blow it loud. Our secret is out. Blow the damned thing until it explodes.”

“Sir?”

“I believe Mr. Prestley said blow the whistle, and good job,” I added. That only confused Blevins further, but his companion was quicker of wit, and he grabbed Blevins’s elbow and off they went, cheering and hooting like schoolboys.

The spray from the Queen’s wheel cast infant rainbows all about us, even framing Evis briefly between a pair.

“You’re awfully glum for a man who just revolutionized river travel,” I said. “The elders give you a bad time about postponing the supper cruise?”

“Walk with me. Hello, Darla. Forgive my manners. It’s been a bad day.”

Darla smiled and squeezed his shoulder. “You’re always a gentleman, even when you think you aren’t,” she said, winking at me. “I’ll be right here.”

Evis made a stiff little bow and eased through the crowd, which parted as if by magic before him. I followed with some small difficulty, applying an occasional elbow to work my way through the milling throng until I caught up.

Evis darted inside the casino and headed for the stairs, black silk flowing in his wake. I trotted and matched his pace.

“You can always do this all over again, once the threat has been dealt with.” I panted a bit. “Surely they understood the need to put things off.”

Evis cussed. “The House understood. And agreed. But our special guest insists that we proceed.”

“What?”

“We depart a full two days early, with all aboard. Our concerns were brushed aside. This is happening, Markhat. Despite my objections.”

“Angels and devils.”

“Just so.” Evis halted, listening for a moment I suppose. “This is insanity.”

“I’ve never heard that person called insane before.”

“Nevertheless. That is his intent. To proceed despite all evidence that doing so invites attack.”

A graveyard chill worked its way down my spine.

“You think you’re being played.”

“I suspect all this is part of a grander scheme,” he whispered. “A scheme years in the making. Move the conflict out of Rannit. Take it to a time and a place of his choosing. Make the opportunity look so inviting those parties we spoke of earlier cannot resist making a move. Oh yes, Markhat. We’ve been played. And now we have no choice but to see it through.”

The chill settled in for a nice long stay.

I couldn’t leave the Queen. I couldn’t send Darla away. The only safety for us was the Queen and her arcane defenses, and now those defenses were surely going to be tested by creatures so old and so powerful they didn’t even have names.

The Queen’s massive smokestack whistles blew. Loud as Buttercup and just as painful, and they blew and they blew and they blew until I imagined all of Rannit must have heard them, even the ones sleeping their uneasy sleep deep down in the dark houses, where the streets changed with every passing, and the sun and the moon shone only at some strange whim.

“Shut that damned thing up,” yelled Evis, but his voice was lost in the sound. He leaned close to me and shouted “supper” loud enough for me to hear, and then he glided up the stairs toward the source of the Queen’s throatless, deafening howl.

I rejoined Darla on the deck and shouldered my way to a place at her side. The man I pushed away gave me a look but then he saw my face and he wisely walked away.

The shrieking whistles fell silent.

“Bad news.” She wasn’t asking, but observing.

“It wasn’t good. Lovely day, though. How does it feel to make nautical history, my dear?”

“I’d rather be going home.” She hugged me, brief and tight, and then she was all smiles.

A flotilla of curious fishermen headed our way, waving and shouting. We on the rail waved and shouted back, and the Queen’s pistons pumped, and we left every boat behind as Evis turned her south and let her engines sing.

The evening meal was a dour affair. Evis barely spoke. Gertriss laid into the wine with a grim determination I’d never seen in her before. Darla moved her food around but ate very little, which led Dutson to fuss and hover until we were all ready to help him overboard for a brisk, invigorating swim.

Only I managed the sacred task of cleaning my plate, because come wrack or ruin, roast beef cooked to absolute perfection and served on a bed of rice and carrots is not to be ignored.

“I’m glad someone found the dish palatable,” muttered Dutson as he took my empty plate. “Would sir care for dessert? We have a very nice lemon meringue pie this evening.”

“Sounds marvelous,” I said. “You have any cigars back there?” Evis was so distraught he’d forgotten. “Nothing like a good cigar after a fine meal.”

“I’m sure I can procure one,” said Dutson, who briefly glanced at Evis before turning away with an injured look.

“Bring two, if you please.” I leaned back in my chair and waited for Dutson to amble out of earshot. “Some party this is.”

“Sorry, boss.” Gertriss drained her glass. “Hard to be festive after today.”

“You should know that better than anybody,” grumbled Evis.

“He speaks!” I caught Darla’s eye. “See, he wasn’t asleep after all.”

“You’re hilarious.” Evis sighed. “Gertriss, how do you get any work done, what with laughing all the time?”

“She manages. Look. I know this has been a blow, but I’ve got a plan.”

Evis didn’t smile. Neither did Gertriss.

“I can’t wait to hear it,” said Evis.

“We sink the Queen,” I said. “Tonight. Right here, at the dock.”

“Boss.”

“Well, we can’t take to the river if we’re on the bottom, now can we?”

“I think I may have wasted my thousand crowns.”

“Why? Because sinking the Queen is a better idea than any other idea I’ve heard. Hell, it’s the only idea I’ve heard, and that, my old friend, is what troubles me most.”

Dutson appeared, a saucer bearing a slice of yellow and white pie in one hand and two cigars in the other.

He set the pie down before me, and I slipped the cigars in my pocket.

“There’s nothing we can do,” said Evis when Dutson headed back to the shadows. “You can’t leave the Queen. I can’t abandon my place in the House. Certain other people”-he didn’t point at Gertriss, but he didn’t need to-“won’t listen to reason. We’re stuck here, all of us, and we’re being led by the nose right into the kind of epic dust-up that leaves people talking about the big holes in the ground a thousand years hence.”

I took a bite of pie. “Best damned pie I ever tasted.”

“One of the last, too.”

I swallowed. “No. I refuse to accept that. We’ve been in some tight spots before. But here we are, not enjoying a truly remarkable meal.”

“We got lucky.”

“Maybe. Who’s to say we won’t get lucky again?” I took another bite. “What’s got into you, Evis? What aren’t you telling me?”

Gertriss gave him a long hard look before speaking. “Spill it.”

He sighed, right through his needle-sharp teeth, making a dry whistling noise. “Something I heard on the Hill. Right from the High House. The Corpsemaster. She’s dead, Markhat.”

“We assumed as much. I’m still not convinced.”

Evis started, as though kicked in his shin.

“Tell him all of it,” whispered Gertriss.

I put my fork down.

“The Regent.” Evis kept his voice low. “He killed the Corpsemaster. Not the bunch from Prince. Angels help us all.”

Darla blanched. I lost my appetite, possibly for the rest of my life.

“Why?”

“She got too powerful. Outlived her usefulness. Lot of that going around.”

“So you think it’s true.”

Evis nodded. “Makes sense. I never believed she bought it up the Brown. Those three from Prince were none of them her equal. Not even close. Hell, Markhat. You know where that leaves us.”

The red lamps hidden by the ornate trim flared to life. Blood-tinged shadows flew. Horns sounded-one long note, half a beat, one short note.

The air went cold. Breaths came out as gouts of steam. The fancy lights flickered and flared, sending shadows dancing about us. Some of the shadows lingered longer than they should have, and some massed at the ceiling, as though trying to come together and take on a monstrous many-limbed form.

The empty casino filled with armed halfdead. Dutson and the wait staff joined them, their hands full of guns or knives, their faces a mix of trepidation or youthful stupid bravado.

Evis rose.

“Dutson. Take Miss Hog and Mrs. Markhat to the dunways.”

“Yes, sir.”

Neither Mrs. Markhat nor Miss Hog made any move to follow. Darla produced her silver gun and aimed a defiant smile at me.

Stitches stepped out of a fold in the dark. The shadows fled, and the winter chill with them.

We are under a sustained arcane attack. Thus far, the Queen’s defenses have held.

“Attack by whom?”

Persons unknown. The method of their offense is archaic. I may be able to better ascertain their origin if I am given permission to engage them.

“Silence the alarm.” Evis cast a furious glance toward Gertriss, who didn’t flinch. The blaring horns fell silent. “Will exposing yourself present additional risk?”

The protection will hold or not. It was designed to allow for simple verbal commerce.

Evis put his gun away. “Permission granted. If the protection begins to fail, what action should I take?”

Pray, for all the good it will do you. Stitches pushed back her hood. You are as safe on the deck as you are within, if you wish to observe. The hull of this vessel will offer no protection if the protective spellworks fail.

She headed for the doors.

I know when to pick my battles, so I just offered Darla my arm. “Let’s take a stroll on the deck,” I said. “I hear there may be fireworks.”

She took my arm but kept her gun handy.

Evis frowned at me before turning to Gertriss. “After you,” he said with a sweeping bow.

Darla, at least, had the good grace not to smirk.

Outside, on the deck, we found chaos.

Gone was the dock and the wharf and the water and sky. The Queen floated inside a bubble, and beyond that thin membrane all hell had broken loose.

Dark masses, some distant kin to thunderclouds, boiled and railed against the spherical volume that held us just beyond their reach. Monstrous shrieks sounded from within the roiling murk. I heard voices cry out, shouting strange words across an echoing gulf. The words, if indeed they were words, made no sense, but even so my skin crawled and my hair tried to stand at the mere echo of them.

Our bubble rang like a struck bell, and I saw Stitches wince and catch hold of the rail briefly before straightening and throwing back her hood.

By the ancient rite of challenge, I demand your name, you who would trouble me and mine.

Laughter-mad and wild-came leaking through the bubble. A wizened, cat-eyed face as wide as the sky pressed itself briefly upon the membrane as might a child at a candy-store window.

“We are numbered beyond measure,” came a voice amid the thunderous roars. “We are we who shall crack thy bones and feast upon thy marrow.”

Evis nodded toward the barrier. “That keeps magic out,” he said to Stitches. “Will it keep physical objects in?”

What a fascinating query. I got the impression Stitches directed her response to Evis and I alone. I too am curious. Shall we conduct a brief test?

Evis glided away. The boiling in the dark surrounding us intensified, and the bubble rang again.

Stitches raised her hand.

A second time I ask, you whose names are many. Who brings affront to my House, un-named, like a thief in the night?

The bubble rang again. Lights began to play among the darkness, flashing too long to be lightning but sounding of thunder all the same.

“We will have that which the Fallen One gave to her minion,” said the voice. “Give it unto us. Give unto us the mortal man who hath walked with it. Give them to us, and we shall trouble thee no more.”

“Can they hear me, Miss Stitches?”

Darla shot me a warning look.

I shall take measures to ensure that they do. I can offer you no assurance that they will listen, though.

I cleared my throat. Darla put a death-grip on my left arm.

“My name is Markhat,” I shouted. “Not minion. I had your trinket, yes, but I destroyed it. It’s gone, and I couldn’t give it back to you if I wanted to.”

The flashes and boiling continued with no apparent change in intensity or frequency.

“Did you hear me? I can’t give you what I don’t have.” I took a breath. “But I’ll come out if you’ll promise to take me and leave these people alone.”

“Hell you will,” said Darla.

“Well, what about it? Do I get an answer?”

The bubble rang loud enough to momentarily drown out the roar and the thunder. When the ringing echoes died, long vertical scratches began to appear on the surface of the protective bubble, and though they quickly faded, more and more began to appear and race through the membrane.

“I asked you bastards a question!” I shouted.

The bubble rang again, louder than before.

It appears we have our reply.

Stitches turned her sightless eyes toward us.

Brace yourselves.

She took hold of the railing. Darla put her gun away and did the same.

Twice I have asked and twice you have denied me the courtesy of a reply. Mr. Prestley. Are you ready?

“Almost,” shouted Evis from somewhere up above. I heard men up there too, cursing and grunting, as though heaving something heavy into place.

I ask a third and final time. What is your name, or names? Answer, or quit this place and trouble us no more.

The slow lightning grew brighter and closer, illuminating oily, leathery masses writhing in the boiling shadows.

“Thou art not worthy to invoke the rite,” shouted the voice. “Thou art-”

Commence, Mr. Prestley.

Thunder of our own sounded, and lightning of our own design streaked in racing lines from the Queen’s top deck before arcing out through Stitches’s bubble and into the dark void beyond.

Not cannons. Guns-rifles from the sound of them-firing in such rapid succession I failed to count the individual shots. The firing sounded from at least three places on the deck, and the trails of light left by the rounds lit up the not-sky with strange glows and frequent, silent blasts of light radiance.

“Told you there’d be fireworks,” I said. Darla swallowed hard, produced her pistol, and emptied it into the void.

Something out there screamed. Not a scream of madness or insane glee or challenge, but a plain old scream of surprise and pain.

Fascinating. Stitches let go of the rail and hurled a fist-sized ball of light through her barrier. It sailed serenely away, fading as though crossing a vast distance, and then Stitches clapped her hands.

The boiling void exploded. One instant, there was the unsky, and the writhing things that rode the strange winds thereof. Then there was a silent white flash, and then-

— then, the lazy Brown River, and the stink thereof, and a weary-looking moon, and the dock, and the wharf, and an army of black-clad Avalante soldiers, guns at the ready, giving us “What the hell looks?“ in the lamplight.

Evis’s fast-firing guns fell silent. Stitches wobbled a bit.

I believe I am due a raise.

She fell, and neither Darla nor I were quite fast enough catch her.

“If you ever offer to give yourself up like that again, husband of mine, I will shoot you myself.”

“Seems a strange way to dissuade heroic acts of valor.” The ever-observant Dutson put a fresh beer bottle at my right hand, and I hoisted it so as not to give insult. “Although I suppose it would solve one of our immediate problems.”

“Hah. I’d shoot you in the ass. Which is where you must be doing all your thinking today. What were you doing, Markhat? What if they’d said yes?”

I took a good long draught of beer. “Then maybe you’d be safe now. Maybe you could go home and polish that new silverware.”

Darla cussed. Dutson, ever the gentleman, pretended not to hear.

Evis was sunk so low in his chair he was nearly invisible. Gertriss was nowhere to be seen. I gather their after-crisis chat hadn’t gone as well as the one Darla and I were enjoying.

“So, what word of Stitches?”

It took Evis a moment to realize I was speaking to him.

“She’s alive. Exhausted, that’s all. Her assistant has her in that fancy clockwork coffin in her room. Says she’ll be up and around by morning.”

“Stitches has an assistant?”

“Yes. She’s so scary she never goes out in public. Is that relevant? Do I need to produce her full dossier, maybe drag her down here in chains?”

“Who put cranky in the beer?”

“I’m not drinking beer.”

“Could be why you’re cranky.”

“Is that your answer to everything, Markhat? More beer?”

I lifted my glass. “It’s as good as any.”

Evis muttered something unintelligible and resumed his sulk.

Men and halfdead scurried to and fro around us. The attack on the Queen hadn’t done any apparent damage, but engineers and boat-wrights and carpenters and wand-wavers were swarming over every inch of her regardless.

“So why didn’t our special guest’s security crew make an appearance?” I’d waited until no one was in earshot. Evis surprised me by answering.

“The body they are to guard wasn’t aboard, I suppose. They’re not exactly a talkative bunch.”

“I noticed.”

“I sent word to the House about the attack, you know.” Evis glared at a pair of engineers until they decided their report wasn’t really that urgent after all. “Got word back almost immediately. Proceed as planned.”

“So that puts us taking on passengers and a full crew the day after tomorrow, and setting out the day after that?”

“We start boarding tomorrow. Getting everyone through the security apparatus won’t be quick.”

I whistled. “Rich people don’t like waiting in lines.”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass what they like.” Evis wasn’t wearing his spectacles since the lights were so low, and his halfdead eyes sparkled like dirty marbles in the candlelight.

“Those new guns. Impressive. From the sound of it, you might have bloodied some old spook’s nose.”

The vampire grinned despite his funk. “Was keeping those secret for just such an occasion. It’s actually a gun with twenty-two barrels, which are mounted in a circle and turned by a hand-crank. Each one can fire nearly two hundred rounds a minute.” He hastily closed his lips over his pointy halfdead teeth. “Sorry.”

“Seems to me that you won that round, Mr. Prestley. So why the long, white face? They came, they threw their punches, they went home bleeding and empty-handed.”

Evis sat up with a long worn out sigh. “We caught them by surprise. That likely won’t happen again.”

“So come up with a new surprise.”

“I’ve only got so many, Markhat. I just used my best dirty little secret and we haven’t pulled away from the dock yet.”

Dutson came strolling out of the shadows. “Pardon me, Mr. Prestley,” he said, his expression a study in somber. “Your presence is requested in the wheelhouse.”

Evis rose. “Bright and early,” he said to me.

I winced. “Such language.”

“Dutson, cut him off for the evening. I need you sober.”

And with that, Evis was gone, blending easily with the shadows.

“I didn’t quite catch that last remark. Did you, Dutson?”

The man didn’t hesitate. “I believe he wished you a good evening, sir. Will you have a final beer before you retire?”

“Now that you mention it, I believe I shall. Dutson, you are a treasure.”

“So it is said, sir.”

Dutson headed for the kitchen. I watched the Queen’s crew tend to her nonexistent wounds, and I wondered if Evis was telling the truth about being out of explosive surprises.

I surprised everyone by rising with the sun, bathing, shaving, and feeding myself, and appearing on the Queen’s foredeck a good quarter of an hour before Evis or Stitches made an appearance.

Darla still lay abed. I’d left a note and a crude sketch of a rose. With any luck, she’d be less inclined to shoot me in my fundament when she did rise.

Stitches met me with a nod. She was in her customary black robe, hood over her face, sleeves concealing her hands. Nothing in her gait or posture suggested any injury.

“Good morning,” I said.

Greetings. I trust you slept well?

“I did. You?”

I am fully recovered.

Evis joined us, wrapped in black silk, his eyes hidden by spectacles. He made an odd, dry, rasping noise behind the wrappings and it took me a moment to realize he was yawning.

“Pardon me. Good morning. Ready to get this underway?”

“No,” I said and was ignored.

I shall raise the interface and prepare the inspectors and the wards.

“Let’s get to it, then.”

It only took them an hour.

A single hour, in which to erect a monstrous brass ring, a good twelve feet in diameter, at the land-side end of the Queen’s private dock. It took six straining Ogres to set the ring upright and get the chains that held it vertical secured in place. As soon as Stitches began attaching cables to the thing, the space it enclosed began to shimmer and flash, which scattered the Ogres and made me wonder what might happen if I tossed a pebble through the middle of it.

While Stitches and her little band of white-coated wand-wavers fussed over the odd desk-like affair to which they attached the ring cables, a pair of cargo wagons rattled up to the waterfront and began disgorging men and material. A festive golden tent was soon wobbling in the wind, tables and chairs were placed neatly beneath it, and finally an honest-to-Angels red carpet was stretched out from tent to dock to the foot of the ring, lest any of Rannit’s fabulously wealthy be forced to tread on mere stone or common cypress planks.

Another wagon rolled up and a bleary-eyed, yawning mob of musicians spilled out, blinking in the morning sun, and sorting out their horns and fiddles and drums. They soon took their places under a second, much smaller tent and began to tootle and strum and tweet as they tuned up their instruments and adjusted their ties.

Darla pulled up a chair beside mine. “Good morning,” she said. “Thank you for the flower.”

“Best I could do,” I said, stealing a brief kiss. “Looks like the show is about to start.”

She blinked at the sun and shaded her eyes with her hand. “What is that thing?”

“One of Stitches’s little toys. I assume it turns anyone who is less than pure of heart into marmalade.”

Evis joined Stitches at her desk, along with her staff. There was much pointing and nodding of various heads.

“Gertriss wants me to meet her in the casino when boarding begins,” said Darla. “She plans to wander around and pretend to talk and listen to as many private conversations as she possibly can.”

“Smart girl.”

“She’s actually just avoiding being alone with Evis by having me there.”

Stitches, Evis, and the crew of white-coats huddled behind the desk, all eyes on the brass ring. Stitches reached down and did something I couldn’t see.

The ring flashed, like a mirror catching the sun. Everyone in sight of it winced or turned away.

When I could see again, Evis was halfway to the tent, yelling at someone in a tuxedo, and Stitches had taken a seat while her crew milled around nearby with satisfied grins.

“They’ll work it out, hon.”

“I hope so. He makes her happy, even though…well. You know.”

I didn’t, but I nodded sagely. That seemed to suffice.

She smiled as the band struck up a dance tune so lowbrow even I recognized it. “So, what clever plan are you hatching today, husband, and how will it impact Dutson’s beer supply?”

“Hardly at all. I’m going to watch. Mingle if the whim carries me. Hopefully if assassins board, one will get careless and drop a dagger and a signed confession.”

“Let’s hope. Have you had coffee? I need coffee.”

“Me too.”

Darla rose and smoothed down her long skirt. “Back in a bit, then. If assassins show up save one for me. I haven’t forgotten my good red rug.”

“I’ll leave you the big one.”

Below, liveried Avalante staff were setting up a bar and an outdoor kitchen. Another tent went up, as festive as the first, and shortly after that the band began to play in earnest.

The first of many sleek black carriages arrived. Doors were held open. Trumpets were sounded. Salutes were thrown. A pair of tipsy old generals, their dress blues hanging off them and rendering their appearance more scarecrow than soldier, tottered down the red carpet and toward the shadow of the first tent.

Another carriage pulled in behind the first, and another after that, and soon the dock was swarming with well-heeled socialites and the polite but wary eyes of House Avalante.

Drinks were poured despite the youth of the day. The smell of sausages cooking wafted up briefly from the makeshift kitchen.

While the party found its feet and learned how to stumble, Evis’s gun crews busied themselves on the deck above me. No shouting or cursing this time, but in just a few minutes they erected three of the awful fast-firing guns that wounded a nightmare just a few hours ago.

The men covered the snouts of the guns with clean white linen sheets and took positions around them, hands clasped at the small of their backs, eyes on the crowd below.

If they let loose, I figured they could cut the dock itself in two after only a few seconds of firing. I hoped I wouldn’t see that.

Carriages were lined up as far as I could see by the time the sun climbed above the bluffs. As horses shuffled and snorted and the band played on, a pair of tuxedoed Avalante staff removed the velvet rope that separated the carpet beneath the tent from that on the dock, and Rannit’s rich and famous made their way-drinks in hand and luggage behind-toward the Queen.

Between them stood Stitches and her flashing brass ring.

The first of the Queen’s guests was the old general who’d been first under the tent. He drained his glass, threw it in the river, and stomped through the ring at such a pace his trio of servants had to hustle to keep up.

From my vantage point, I saw nothing but a brief shimmering in the air about the man, and he was through. The old general’s servants came next, one-two-three, their arms loaded with suitcases and bags hanging off every shoulder. The last dragged a trunk. Servants and trunks popped through the shimmering like bugs through a bubble, and Stitches nodded, and a white-coat motioned the next party through.

I caught Evis watching from beside the tent. He saw me, waved, and vanished into the crowd.

Darla returned, two steaming china cups of coffee in her hands, and sat.

“The casino looks different,” she said. “They’ve taken the covers off everything. I suppose they’re open for business, even at this hour.”

“I doubt they close until we finish the trip or sink.”

Darla sipped coffee and closed her eyes.

“Sorry. You know me. Always a Troll until noon, at least.”

“There’s a grand ball tonight.” She opened her eyes. “You haven’t forgotten, have you?”

I had.

“Not at all,” I said. “May I borrow your red evening gown?”

“You’re hopeless.” She took another long draught of coffee and stood. “Gertriss is waiting for me. Have a good morning, dear. I’ll see you at lunch. And the red gown will make your hips look like you’ve got pumpkins in your pockets.”

“I treasure your frankness, wife of mine.”

She blew me a kiss and sashayed away.

I drank my coffee and when it was gone I held my empty cup and pretended to drink and I watched the rich folks board, one by one. The brass ring never did more than shimmer, and the guns just above me never spoke-never hurled down fire and death from their pitiless steel maws.

For four hours, the band played and drinks flowed and the ring shimmered. At noon, the velvet rope was replaced, and a fresh wagon of musicians arrived, and another bearing cooks and trays of meat and bottle after bottle of expensive fancy wines.

Stitches took to her ring, poking it with a long metal rod while strange shadows played across its empty face.

Which made me jump, just a bit, when a second Stitches appeared in the empty chair beside me and spoke.

Good morning, Markhat. Her tone was tinged with amusement. I am glad to see you vigilant.

The other Stitches, a good sixty feet away, continued poking at the ring with her glowing metal stick.

“Nice trick,” I said, just mouthing the words behind my empty cup. “You’ll have to teach it to me, some day.”

I have completed the adjustments to the device. But I wanted to speak with you. When I leave, an object will be left behind. Take it. Keep it on your person at all times. And speak of it to no one. Not your wife. Not Evis. No one.

“If I ask what it is, are you going to answer or just vanish?”

It will appear to be a tortoise shell, sealed with black wax.

I damn nearly jumped out of my chair and into the Brown. I did put down my cup so no one would see my hand begin to shake.

“You found one? A huldra?”

No. This is only a crude replica. It will not withstand intense or prolonged scrutiny.

“You said you lacked the skill to even create a simulacrum.”

I did and I do. As I said, it will not withstand scrutiny. But it might buy you a few seconds. What you do with those few seconds is entirely up to you.

“Stitches, what the hell are you trying to say?”

But she was gone.

And there, in the chair, was a small brown tortoise shell, sealed with old black wax.

I didn’t pick it up. Fake or not, it was a perfect physical replica of the thing I’d grasped when I thought Darla dead. I’d taken it up, and I’d told it my true name, and it had burrowed its way down deep into my soul.

I remembered the nights I’d walked with it. I’d grown, until I looked down upon Rannit, until clouds had literally soaked my face and hair. I’d seen things, on those night walks-seen the magic that Stitches and her kin wielded, hidden in folds of shadow that had been right there, all the time.

I’d seen things, and heard things, and most of all, I’d felt the power.

I’d killed while I walked with the huldra. I’d loosed my rage upon the guilty, and I’d torn them limb from limb, without pity or remorse or hesitation. I’d taken what I thought was my vengeance, and I’d loved it. Though in the end I’d crushed the huldra and walked away, a part of me had never forgotten the power, or the sweet, sweet taste of revenge, justly extracted, and furiously applied.

The huldra had taken my name. It had nearly taken my soul. Darla alone brought me back from that dark abyss.

As I recalled those walks, recalled the blood on my hands, I wondered if perhaps some brief shadows born of that abyss now dwelt in me.

Chapter Eleven

I wasn’t allowed to watch the Regent board.

No one was, save perhaps Evis and Stitches and anyone they deemed necessary to the boarding process. Instead, all aboard were all asked to gather on the casino deck for a grand welcome. Free libations were mentioned, and within moments the stampede commenced, and the Queen’s outer decks were clear.

I kept hold of Darla and allowed myself to be herded along. A band started playing, waiters and waitresses dispersed throughout the crowd, and Rannit’s Minister of Commerce harrumphed and mumbled his way through a magnificently dull speech.

I knew when the Regent set foot on the Queen, though. The air rushed for a moment as a subtle but potent spell took hold. I saw a few faces turn this way and that, searching for the source of the sudden brief breeze.

Darla squeezed my arm.

“Was that?”

“It was.” I grabbed a pair of long-stemmed wine glasses from a passing waiter. “Here. Might as well have a drink while we wait.”

Darla took a sip. “Wait for what?”

“Best time to cause trouble would be right now. Before everyone gets settled in, gets all their goodies unpacked.”

She knew who “everyone” was.

Half an hour crept by, second by agonizing second. The Minister of Commerce shuffled off the stage.

The Queen’s stained glass windows went black. The casino was plunged into sudden darkness. Squeals and laughter rang out-none from me.

Candles flared to life on every table. Above us, the massive hanging lights flickered, and a burst of music sounded. As the music swelled, the lights came quickly to life, and the Queen was filled with ethereal, dancing starlight.

Evis himself took the stage, blinking in the sudden glare.

“Lords and ladies, sirs and madams, captains of industry, heroes of the War,” he began, and his voice sounded easily over the music. “I welcome you aboard the jewel in Avalante’s crown-the Brown River Queen!”

Applause drowned out even the most strident notes of the song.

Darla was clapping, her display of enthusiasm somewhat hindered by the gun in her right hand and the wary look in her eyes.

“As we welcome you to a new era of entertainment and luxury, I am proud to reveal that we are accompanied by a very special guest. For you travel with none other than the Regent himself, who has graciously agreed to make the Queen’s maiden voyage truly historic by lending us his presence.”

The crowd clapped louder and faster, even as they exchanged shocked glances.

“On behalf of House Avalante and the crew of the Queen, I bid you all welcome. And now, by order of the Regent himself, let us be underway, and let the celebration begin!”

Trumpets blew. The crowd, well-fueled by equal parts booze, surprise, and in many cases, terror, roared like the host of Hell.

Beneath my feet, the Queen’s deck began to vibrate, and even though I couldn’t hear a thing over the din, I could feel her pistons wake and begin to move.

Within moments we were underway. I couldn’t see the big red wheel turn. Some sorcery prevented us from hearing it churn the Brown’s muddy face, but I could see the metronomic splashes of water on the aft glass, and as these increased in volume and frequency I knew we were on the move and picking up speed.

Give her this-she was a graceful lady, the Queen. Not a single wine glass fell. The deck never swayed. We might as well have been sitting in my office rather than thrashing our way to the middle of the Brown.

Evis motioned with his hands. Bright red balloons fell from the Queen’s ceiling and exploded just as they neared the tops of our heads. A tiny shrieking dragon, glowing like an ember, flew from each balloon, darting to and fro overhead as the crowd shouted and cheered.

The diminutive dragons vanished, one by one, with a loud pop and a puff of radiant vapor. Evis bowed and left the stage as a line of musicians took their places in chairs at the rear.

Music sounded, loud and clear, though the musicians hadn’t sorted out their horns and harps, much less started playing. The music was strange, unearthly, and I couldn’t begin to even name the instruments, much less the melody.

Around us, the crowd began to move. Most made their way to the gambling tables, eager to line Avalante’s pockets by betting on dice or wheels. A surprising number of couples took to the dance floor in front of the stage.

I set off in that direction myself, Darla at my side. I found us a spot in the dim wash of light that crept from the stage and put my back to it before bowing and formally offering Darla my hand.

She didn’t laugh. “I’d be honored,” she said as she slipped into my arms.

“Keep an eye on the musicians,” I whispered into her ear.

Around us, couples bowed and curtseyed and stepped and spun, all moving according to some ages-old custom that demanded all the precision of a military drill corps and promised roughly the equivalent measure of intimate contact with congenial womenfolk. I reflected upon the probability of imminent mayhem, put my arms around Darla’s waist, and just started swaying.

She pretended to gasp. “Why, Mr. Markhat! The scandal!”

“I’ll have Evis put it on my tab.” I pulled her closer, ignoring the curious stares of our fellow dancers, who still moved in their ever-changing hops, curtseys, and rounds.

The music played, slow and suggestive. Something stringed made mournful notes while a deep bass drum beat like a weary heart.

“I like this music,” I said. Darla leaned into me. “What the hell is it, and where is it coming from?”

“Gertriss and I heard it earlier. It’s a recording made from music that Evis and his people found playing on that long-talking device they have hidden away under Avalante. Evis thinks it comes from another world.”

“It might.” A woman began to sing with the music, her voice low and husky, her words foreign and incomprehensible, but her amorous intent crystal clear.

We swayed. I moved my feet around a bit. The couple closest to us gave up their precise choreography for a halting but enthusiastic embrace.

“Look, dear, we’re trendsetters,” I whispered.

She smiled and moved with me. Before the foreign song faded away, and another began, half the dance floor was standing close and swaying in the dark, while the traditionalists glared and pranced and gave us room.

I scanned the crowd for Evis or trouble and saw neither. I did catch a brief glimpse of Gertriss’s bright green gown and braided blonde hair, both of which were surrounded by smiling, eager young men hoping to outshine his fellows.

We did a half-turn.

“They’re wasting their charm,” said Darla. “Any sign of our toothy host?”

“Not since he left the stage. I’m sure he’s got orders to give, boats to steer, brooding, dark looks to cast dramatically across shadowed, empty halls.”

“Were we ever that confused?”

“You never wavered in your quest to win my heart, oh first wife of mine.”

She pinched me. “First wife? You have another?”

“Not yet, but the night is young.”

Gertriss slipped away from her bevy of suitors and I lost sight of her in the crowd.

“What’s this?” Darla’s hand paused casually over the wax-sealed tortoise shell in my right jacket pocket.

“A gift.” I recalled Stitches’s admonition that I tell no one of the false huldra, even Darla. I told Darla the whole story in whispers.

“You should throw it in the river,” she said when I was done. Her eyes were somber. “I like Stitches. But I don’t trust her.”

I dipped Darla and made her smile. “If I do, I might wish I hadn’t.”

“Let me then.”

“We’ll see.” The music faded away, and the spotlight flared to life, and a tall black woman in a long white gown took the stage as the musicians tapped out a rhythm and began to play.

The Queen lurched-just a bit, but enough to cause the remaining pair of formal dancers to stumble and lose their place. The lights even flickered.

And then it was over. The sounds of dice clattering and wheels spinning and gamblers shouting and cheering never faltered, not even for an instant.

“Did you see that?”

“I did.” I felt Darla’s heart beat faster. “Trouble?”

“Don’t know.” We kept dancing. The black lady introduced herself as Lady Rondalee of Bel Loit and dedicated her first song to ‘all the lovers out there.’

“Trouble,” she sang. “Trouble, bad trouble, been dogging me all my days…”

“Well, that’s comforting,” whispered Darla.

“Ain’t no comfort, ain’t no comfort, no comfort ever comin’ my ways…”

“I think she can hear you,” I said.

“I hear you, I hear you sayin’, sayin’ I needs to be changin’ my ways…”

Darla stopped swaying. “You don’t think-”

“I don’t. Coincidence. We’re on edge, that’s all. It’s just a song.”

A waiter pushed his way through the crowd. His starched white shirt was stretched to near bursting by his muscular physique. A scar ran all the way down the right side of his face. Something under his black dinner jacket bulged, and I didn’t think it was a salt shaker.

He bore down on us, mindful to keep his hands visible and open, palms toward me.

He stopped a few paces short of us, and waited until I gently disengaged from Darla and moved to stand in front of her.

He nodded, reached slowly in his jacket, and came out with a note. He held it up and I took it from him, and he vanished into the crowd-doubtlessly to employ those muscles in the precise pouring of any one of Rannit’s finer wines.

I unfolded the note, just halfway, to make sure it didn’t bear hex signs. Instead, I recognized Gertriss’s tall plain hand, and opened it all the way.

BOSS, it read. BY THE PORT STAIR. COME QUICK. IT’S BAD.

Darla gasped, reading over my shoulder.

“Don’t suppose I could convince you to wait here?”

“Waste of time trying, dear.”

And we were off, weaving through the dancers, plowing through the drunks and the gamblers and their noisy entourages.

I caught one more stanza of Lady Rondalee’s song, before the din drowned her out.

“One day soon, one day soon, trouble gonna be the death of me…”

“Not tonight, I hope,” I muttered. Darla didn’t hear.

I put my shoulder to the mob and charged toward the stairs.

I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I found Gertriss.

Blood, maybe. Bodies, possibly. Mayhem, certainly.

But what we found appeared to be a shapely, young, blonde woman locked in the throes of rather public affection with a young man deep in his cups.

Gertriss and her companion had chosen a tiny table for two at the very back of the Queen’s casino deck. It was tucked into an alcove formed by the stairwell and the wall, and as such, it was deep in shadow and as well out of sight as any spot on the entire casino floor.

The table had been pushed away from the wall. Gertriss sat in the man’s lap, his arms over her shoulders, her face pressed to his.

Darla caught on fast. The man’s arms were too limp. His hands just flopped. The only reason his head wasn’t hanging down was because Gertriss was keeping it up with her simulated kisses.

There aren’t many young women willing to get so intimate with a corpse that everyone nearby was fooled into thinking they were a couple.

I eyed the crowd around us. Hell, nobody was doing more than glancing and grinning. Most eyes were on the wheel a half-dozen steps away, where a greying banker and a woman half his age were throwing away a fortune amid gales of laughter and demands for more drinks.

Darla took a position behind me. I leaned down and spoke into Gertriss’s ear.

“Is he dead?”

“Yes, boss. I didn’t see who did it. He was laughing one minute and dead the next. There’s a knife in his chest. Boss, his eyes are gone. I put his head down on the table and wrote out a note and gave it to a waiter to give to security. I was afraid someone notice he wasn’t moving, so I pretended we were a couple. What do we do?”

“We talk about giving you a raise.”

“Now, boss. What do we do now? We can’t panic the guests. Evis. He’ll be ruined.”

I laughed, long and loud, and pretended to pull Gertriss from her fellow. I let his face hang down before anyone nearby got a good look.

His eyes were gone. There wasn’t much blood. Just two empty sockets, eyelids sunk in and hanging limp.

“He’ll just have a headache in the morning,” I said for the benefit of anyone listening. “Here, let’s get him back to his room.”

Gertriss stood and helped me block the view. I checked for a pulse in his neck, found none, dropped my hand down until I felt the wet spot on his shirt.

“I pulled it out,” said Gertriss before I could ask. “Didn’t want anyone to see.”

He was wearing a jacket. I fumbled with the buttons until I got it closed.

“You don’t say,” I roared, laughing. “Well, no more brandy for you tonight!”

“Is he drunk again?” said Darla, hands on her hips.

“Dead drunk,” I replied. Gertriss got on his left, and I on his right, and together we hefted the dead man to his feet. As long as no one got inquisitive, he looked like any other passed-out drunk.

Darla began a furious tirade that drew a few stares but kept them off the dead man. She kept it up the whole time Gertriss and I conveyed our limp friend through the casino and up the stairs. I waved off a pair of waiters, and they had the sense to turn and walk away.

I was never so glad to find a dark and winding staircase. If we were attracting attention, it wasn’t much. I dared a single pause just before the ceiling cut off my view of the casino floor, and scanned the crowd to see if any one face was watching us go with more than casual attention.

I saw nothing but a mob of Rannit’s elite throwing taxpayer money away by the fistful, so I hauled the dead man up the stairs while Darla pretended to chide us both for our lack of decorum and Gertriss fought back tears.

The hall, when we reached it, was empty. Darla took Gertriss’s place under the corpse’s right arm.

“Where are we taking him?”

“Our room. I don’t like it either, but we’ve got to get out of sight.”

She bit her lips and nodded. We headed for our door, mindful of voices and the sounds of approaching feet, but we managed to make the trip without meeting anyone.

Darla got the door open and I shoved our quiet new acquaintance inside.

“Blanket,” I said. Gertriss darted past me, found a linen closet, and threw a new white blanket upon the floor.

I laid the dead man on it, as gently as my aching arms allowed. He hadn’t been a small man, or a light one.

Darla knelt down at his eyeless head.

“What did this?”

“Someone wanting to make an impression.” I unbuttoned his coat, searched his pockets, laid the contents down in a pile.

Eight hundred crowns, all of it paper. Two gold crowns in a leather case, inscribed “From Father, on the Day of Your Birth.“ A door key, numbered 233. A white hanky, two paper-wrapped peppermints, and a silver card case.

I opened the case.

“ROLLAR KIST,” read the stark white linen-paper card. Below that was a seal-two daggers crossed against a bed of roses.

And that was all.

I closed the case. I reached up to shut the dead man’s eyes until I remembered he didn’t have any to bother with.

“Rollar Kist,” I said. “Anybody recognize the name? Gertriss?”

She shook her head. She stopped crying, but not shaking. I gave Darla a glance and she rose and led Gertriss to a chair.

“I hate to ask, but I have to. Tell me what you saw.”

Gertriss sat, her hands clasped in her lap. She took a breath.

“He sent me a drink. And a card. I couldn’t find Evis. So I went over to thank him. He was alive and smiling when I stood up, boss. Dead and… like that when I got there, maybe a quarter of a minute later. Just sitting there. Like that.”

Darla got behind her and started rubbing her neck.

“You see anybody near him? Anybody speak to him or hurry away?”

Gertriss shook her head no.

“It was dark. And loud. And there were so many people moving around. I’m sorry, boss. I didn’t see a thing.”

“You weren’t meant to. Don’t beat yourself up. Whoever did this knew what they were doing.”

Gertriss shivered. Not because I was right, but because she realized, as I did, that the killer could as easily have chosen her as his target, and might do so yet.

“You think this man was killed because he sent Gertriss a drink, and she knows you?”

“Could be me. Could be Evis the killer meant to rattle. Not sure yet. But someone is determined to make trouble.”

Darla’s eyes fell. “So you don’t think this is a coincidence? A random killing?”

“He was stabbed. Then his eyes were removed. They left a thousand crowns in his pockets.” I shook my head. “No. This was meant to touch off a panic. Say Gertriss had screamed and raised a ruckus. Dead man, knife in his heart, eyes in somebody’s pockets? Free drinks aren’t going to take the sting out of that.”

A knock sounded at the door.

“Markhat,” said Evis. “Is Gertriss in there? Open up!”

I pulled the blanket over the dead man before rising and heading for the door.

I checked the peephole before I unlocked it. Evis was there, flanked by a pair of Avalante halfdead in dark glasses.

“She’s here,” I said, motioning them all inside. “Quick. We’ve got trouble.”

“I heard. You left at a trot. What the hell?”

He nudged the blanket aside with the toe of a finely polished boot.

“What the hell?”

He saw Gertriss then and rushed to her side. She stood, wiping at her smeared make-up.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“She’s certainly not fine,” said Darla, her arms crossed over her chest. “She pretended to embrace a mutilated corpse just so you wouldn’t have a panic on your hands.”

“What the hell?”

I pulled Darla aside. “Give him some room,” I said as Evis and Gertriss began a frantic whispered conversation. “He’s repeating himself. Sure sign of panicked contrition. What’s that?”

Darla held up a short, wide dagger, using a napkin to keep from touching it. Blood stained the blade. “This is what she pulled out of the late Mr. Kist,” she said. “I’ve never seen one quite like it.”

The hilt was as fat and short as the blade. Both were worked with symbols I couldn’t place, except to say they weren’t Kingdom or Old Kingdom or the tall straight script of the Church.

“Let me have a look,” I said. Evis was beside me, though I never saw him move.

“Dammit, Markhat, don’t-”

Before he could finish, the knife was in my hand.

I didn’t take it. Darla swears to this day she didn’t hand it to me. One instant my hand was empty, though, and the next I was gripping a fat silver dagger with a bloody sharp blade.

It went cold-colder than Yule Eve ice. I tried to throw it down. I opened my fingers and threw, but it was stuck to my skin as surely as if it were glued.

The hairs on the back of my neck tried to stand up and scamper away as the hex stored in the dagger settled over me like a blanket woven of frost.

Markhat, said a faint hex-voice in an airy whisper. Markhat.

Evis shouted. “Get Stitches up here now!” One of his halfdead soldiers darted out my door.

The dagger moved and changed in my grasp, became a wine glass, a beer bottle, a vase I’d given Darla to keep her fireflowers in the day we moved into our new house.

Darla, her eyes wide, tried to take the thing from my hand, but Evis grabbed her and pushed her back. “Damn me,” he said, fixing his gaze over my left shoulder. “Marcus. Kill it.”

The remaining halfdead pulled a pair of short silver blades from beneath his dark coat and charged past me.

I whirled. Marcus’s blades were slicing and gleaming, cutting through a thickening darkness in the air but spilling no blood.

The shape solidified, took on the form of a hooded, cloaked figure so tall its hood scraped the ceiling.

It raised a bony hand to point at me and began to speak in that hissing, dry whisper.

Marcus dropped his blades, pulled a revolver, and emptied it into the dark form.

It neither flinched nor faltered. A ringing began to sound in my ears and a tightness began to grow in my throat.

Darla nearly managed to claw her way past Evis when I broke for the door.

“Dammit, Markhat, wait for Stitches!”

I didn’t reply. I hit the hall and bowled over a fat little man in a top hat and I didn’t look back.

I made for the stairs. The vase warped and shook and it was a cold, full bottle of beer. I’d bolted with the intention of throwing it over the side. I was three steps down the stairs before I realized I’d have to go into the Brown with it since it refused to let me let it go.

The beer bottle became a tortoise shell, sealed with old black wax. A single glance behind me revealed the dark form gliding down the stairs, bony finger still raised in silent accusation. A minor stampede started when a half-dozen revelers heading up met me and fled at the sight of my rapidly-gaining pursuer.

So down I charged, for lack of anything better to do. I hit the landing on the casino floor and yelled out a warning and headed for the exit.

My shout was lost in the din. Maybe a dozen people glanced my way, but only briefly, before returning to their games or dates or drinks.

I hit the doors. Cool midnight air and the unmistakable aroma of the Brown’s muddy waters greeted me. I charged a short distance up the narrow deck. I now held the snow-globe Evis gave Darla and me as a wedding present. As it changed and flowed, I brought my hand down hard on the Queen’s iron rail.

Whatever it was becoming shattered. Shards flew.

I brought my hand down again as the specter flung open the Queen’s wide doors and floated toward me, still speaking in a dry, crackling whisper nearly drowned out by the steady thump-thump-thump of the Queen’s paddle wheel.

More pieces flew, steaming when they hit the water.

The phantom was nearly upon me.

I debated pulling my pistol with my left hand, opted for a final hard blow on the rail.

The thing in my hand shattered and the phantom wailed, and an answering shriek from somewhere out on the water startled us both and gave me the chance to shove my free hand in my pocket and thrust Stitches’s fake huldra right under the hooded spook’s vaporous nose.

The bubble surrounding the Queen flared bright and as hot as the noonday sun, blinding me. I tried to turn and went down on my ass instead, and I felt a shadow pass quickly over me, and when I managed to stand the deck was dark and I thought I was alone.

Deeply troubling, said Stitches. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, which showed nothing but spots and a blurry after-image of a length of deck and a robed form. Despite our best efforts, a sophisticated piece of hostile magic was secreted aboard.

“What was that thing?”

I heard Evis and Darla and the sound of running feet. I stuck the fake huldra back in my pocket, leaned against the rail, and crossed my arms.

A distraction. The Regent’s guards were attacked. One is missing. I must attend.

And she was gone, vanishing with the same ease as my phantom.

Evis, flanked by grim-faced halfdead bearing blades and guns, bore down on me, surrounding me.

“It’s gone,” I said. “But you’d better get upstairs. Something hit the Regent’s people. One of them is gone.”

“How-”

“Stitches was here. I’m fine. Go.”

He gave me an exasperated hiss and turned, ordering one of his people to stay behind. The rest flapped away, vanishing into the night like so many agitated crows.

Darla emerged from the rush of retreating vampires and made her way to me, gun still in her hand.

“Are you sure it’s gone?”

“I broke the knife, or whatever it was, and Stitches took care of what was left. I’m fine. You’re not a widow just yet.”

The lone halfdead ordered to stay behind turned his back and hid himself in the shadows. Darla joined me at the rail, staring out at the dark water.

“If we just jumped in now, husband, do you think we could swim all the way back to Rannit?”

“Not in these clothes. We’d sink like rocks.” I put my left hand on Darla’s right, unable to gauge her mood. None of Dad’s advice concerning matters of emotional intimacy with womenfolk extended to the aftermath of near-fatal attacks by magical booby traps. “Anyway, we’re safer here, aboard the Queen. Stitches’s shield is holding.”

“Did Stitches say that?”

“Sure she did. Shield is as good as new. Better, in fact. Nothing at all can get past this time.”

Darla nodded, her eyes still fixed on the night.

“Then why, dearest, did Buttercup just stroll right through it?”

I whirled.

Out on the water, a dozen steps from the Queen’s rail, Buttercup pranced and spun, glowing like a harvest moon. Her dainty little banshee feet kicked up sprays of water, at which she giggled and pointed, but she neither sank nor bothered to swim.

She was well within the bubble of arcane protection we’d both seen keep the first attackers at bay.

“Mama Hog in a rowboat,” I said.

Darla’s gaze followed the rope tied about Buttercup’s waist.

Mama Hog’s distant voice sounded over the Queen’s churning wheel.

“Well, don’t just stand there gawkin’, boy! I ain’t plannin’ on swimmin’ aboard!”

Our vampire friend detached himself from his corner of midnight and joined us at the rail. His dead white eyes were wide, and he forgot his manners and let his toothy jaw hang open.

“You might as well go tell Evis to set an extra place at our table,” I said as gently as I could. “She’ll swear she doesn’t, but she likes beer and cigars.”

Buttercup saw us and squealed, lifting up her arms and simply taking flight. Mama cussed as her tiny rowboat was yanked forward, surging ahead so fast the front half of the boat lifted entirely out of the water.

My halfdead friend’s cloak barely made a sound as he raced for the safety of the Queen’s casino doors.

Chapter Twelve

“Now this here steak is a mite under-done,” reported Mama, eyeing her cut of prime beef with airy disdain. Her fine silver knife flew, slicing through the meat as though through butter. “But I reckon I’m much obliged all the same.”

She chewed and smacked with gusto. Buttercup slid feet-first out of her chair and vanished beneath the table, and instantly I felt a tugging at my meticulously polished shoes.

I’m not entirely sure halfdead can shed tears, but Evis appeared to be on the verge of doing so, physiology be damned. Gertriss wrung her hands uselessly at his side. Darla leaned forward and from the sudden shrieks and giggles under the table I surmised she caught hold of Buttercup.

Beside me, Stitches pushed carrots around on a fine white china plate and dabbed now and then at the blood weeping from her tight-sewn eyes. She hadn’t said a word since seating herself.

I drank beer and waited for the Queen to simply explode.

“One more time,” said Evis, during a lull in the music being played by the Queen’s imperturbable band. “For Stitches. Tell us how you got here.”

Mama choked down a chunk of steak and chuckled.

“Reckon you was awful surprised to see the likes of me step aboard your fancy boat.” She punctuated her words with pokes of her knife. “Old Mama Hog is a woman to be reckoned with, and don’t you forget it.”

“Mama.” I didn’t raise my voice. “We’re impressed. You may get a hat. Maybe a medal. But right now Stitches needs to know how you got aboard. Because if you did, others can.”

Mama snorted. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry too much about that.” She fixed Stitches in a beady-eyed Hog stare. “Is she to be trusted? Tell me the truth, boy. Can I tell her what she needs to know without harm to you-knows-who?”

“You can. On my word. I vouch for her.”

Stitches rewarded me with the ghost of a sewn-lipped smile.

“Well. If’n you say so.” She reached up and mopped at her chin and lips with a white linen napkin. “This here,” she said, dragging Buttercup up from beneath the table, “ain’t no ordinary child.”

I surmised as much, said Stitches, allowing no humor to creep into her voice. She is a keener. What some folk call a banshee.

“That’s right. But I tells you this, Miss Fancy Wand-Waver. I done took a likin’ to this child, keener or banshee or whatever else ye wants to call her. She’s my kin, you got that? And I ain’t tolerant, not the least damned bit, of anybody who would ill-use my kinfolk.” Mama’s voice went hard and clear. “Is that understood?”

Perfectly. Please continue.

Mama nodded. “Well, I been studyin’ up on ways to keep her from roamin’ the streets at night ever since we took her in. I tried everything and then some, I tell you. Potions. Poultices. Hexes. Charms. Boy, did you know I drawed a hex-sign on my ceiling in silver paint and burnt a damn half-bushel of myrrh potentifying it? Did you?”

I shook my head no. Hell, Mama could burn whole sewers in that pot of hers and the smell wouldn’t be worsened or improved a single whit.

“Well, I did. Cost me three month’s wages. And she skipped out of that circle like I’d done naught but sneeze in a flour-sifter. No.” Mama shook her head sagely. “Ain’t nothing can keep this child contained, if’n she’s got a mind to go elsewheres.”

Evis put his dead white face in his pale, claw-tipped fingers.

“Mama. The point, please. It’s late.”

Mama sniffed. “Well, I got to thinkin’. Whatever magic this child has is a powerful old magic, and the likes of me ain’t going to best it.” She cackled and grinned at Stitches. “I reckon the same could be said ‘bout you, ain’t that right?”

Indubitably.

“Well, I thinks, if ain’t nothing but Buttercup’s magic equal to Buttercup’s magic, then how can I take hold of some of that?”

Stitches lifted her chin a full fraction of an inch.

“So, I took to collectin’ hairs,” said Mama, her wide old face suddenly smug. “Oh, she sheds hairs like any young un’. And she likes havin’ her hair brushed, don’t ye, child?”

Buttercup giggled and squirmed in her lap.

“So I took them hairs, I did, and I tied them end to end. And when I had me a nice long line made, I hired a man to weave me a rope around it.”

I applaud you, Missus Hog. That was a stroke of sheer brilliance.

Mama actually blushed. Darla saw it too, but wisely said nothing.

“I don’t know about all that. Just common sense. If’n you wants to hold something that can’t be held, use a rope what can’t be broken. That’s an old Troll sayin’, Miss Stitches. I reckon them Trolls is a mite smarter than what anybody thinks, hereabouts.”

Indeed. This rope of yours-it allowed you to pass through the shield, unharmed, in the same way the child did.

“I got to be honest. I didn’t know nothin’ about no magical shields. I wasn’t even intending on coming here. I got the rope back from the rope-maker yesterday. I tied it around her waist at sunset. And damned if she didn’t drag me all the way here like I was one of her dolls.” Mama pushed a grey shock of hair out of her face. “Truth is, she hauled me through Rannit kickin’ and cussin’, and if I hadn’t knocked a man out of his rowboat and jumped in I reckon I’d have been drowned when Little Bit here first took to the Brown.”

I said it so Stitches wouldn’t have to. “You mean you just kept hanging on, knowing where she was probably heading?”

Mama grinned a crooked grin.

“Like I said, boy. She’s kinfolk, or close enough to it. And I knowed she was comin’ cause your fool hide was in danger. Now, can I get one of them fancy cigars?”

Evis fumbled in his pocket.

“What do you know about banshee magic?”

Stitches shrugged. Nothing. Hers is a magic ancient beyond even my ken.

Something changed in the not-voice Stitches used.

There are cycles to magic, finder. Seasons, if you will.

I looked around. Evis was lighting Mama’s cigar. Gertriss and Darla were trying to keep Buttercup seated and inconspicuous. I gathered no one but me was hearing Stitches speak.

The child you call a banshee was created during an age when arcane conditions were different from those which exist today. If I continue my seasonal analogy, your Buttercup was born on the longest day of summer, when magic burned hot and bright.

I nodded, hoping Stitches would continue.

If that was summer, then today is early spring after a long cold winter. The magic that imbued the banshee is not even possible today. Nor will it be for some long time. But she still wields a shadow of it, which means she is unbound by the rules beings born in winter must obey.

I dared a whisper. “So that’s how she walked through your spells.”

I doubt she even noticed them.

Inspiration made my heart sink.

“How many other of these summer-born critters do you think might be out there?”

A goodly number. But these creatures, and their domiciles, are known. Cataloging such creatures is commonplace among my peers. Most summer-born slumber, nearly in hibernation, awaiting the end of the magical winter. Those who do not sleep have taken to the Deep. They do not walk among us.

“That’s a relief,” I whispered, though no one was paying me any attention. Another disturbing thought arose. “But Buttercup wasn’t in any catalog, was she?”

She was not. Either her childlike nature has kept her hidden or she has hidden behind a childlike nature.

Buttercup made us both jump by emitting a loud snort of giggling from beneath the table. Darla and Gertriss struggled to pull her back into her seat.

“So, what does all this have to do with our little dinner cruise?”

Everything. Stitches paused long enough to waggle her fingers. The noise around me diminished, though mouths still moved and musicians still plucked at their strings. Even those who slumber are not entirely removed from the world. They leave behind-we shall call them agents. Agents dedicated to preventing the rise of cannon. Of rifles. Of steam engines. Of anything and everything that could pose a threat to their masters, when they wake. Stitches gestured, taking in the Queen’s bustling casino floor. So yes. Our little dinner cruise, as you call it, has taken on a significance only a few understand.

I wasn’t thrilled to be numbered among that few.

“So the attacks on Avalante. On the Regent. Hell, even on me-it’s these agents trying to keep us from forging cannon big enough to blow their masters to bits?”

In essence. They see the Regency as a possible point of emergence for technologies and sciences which could one day endanger even the most powerful magical beings.

“So what the hell is the Regent doing taking long boat rides when he ought to be hiding deep in a bunker somewhere?”

Conflicts are never resolved through defense alone.

I grabbed for a beer, found only empties.

“Draw them out. Make himself such a tempting target, and so far from the High House that the agents can’t resist taking a whack.”

Thus revealing their allies among Rannit’s sorcerous elite. Hag Mary we know. Her compatriots we do not. Yet.

“Do me a favor and stop spilling state secrets. I’m getting the uncomfortable impression it’s not healthy to know any of this.”

The Corpsemaster trusted you. I trust she had reason to do so.

“I hear the Corpsemaster was a little too careless with her trust. That true, Stitches? About who killed her?”

She knew damned well who it was we weren’t talking about. The Regent.

It may interest you to know the huldra was also a relic of the summer years.

I cussed. No answer was as damning as a cheerful confirmation.

“That explains all the sudden interest in it. Can’t have that running loose.”

Indeed. I still fail to understand why the Corpsemaster allowed such a potent object to be introduced so haphazardly in the midst of a growing conflict.

“She had a wicked sense of humor.”

The noise around us returned to its previous level. Darla and Gertriss looked up suddenly, as though I’d spoken.

“Boss?”

“Dear?”

“Nothing. Was just calling for Dutson. He owes me a beer.”

The omnipresent Dutson appeared at my side, bearing a frosty brown bottle and a clean crystal glass.

“Shall I pour, sir?”

I indicated my assent with a wave of my aristocratic right hand and was pleased when it didn’t shake.

If what Stitches said was true, our little dinner cruise was drawing far more interest than I’d ever imagined possible.

“Will there be anything else, sir?”

“A rowboat and a fast horse.”

Dutson merely nodded. “Yes, sir.”

He toddled away. Darla gave me a questioning glance. I grinned and shrugged, which is our private code for ‘explanations will follow.’

Mama Hog broke the silence that followed with a long country belch. “Better out than in,” she announced through a proud gap-toothed grin. “I’d like another plate of them mashed-up taters, if’n you please.”

“Oh, shit,” said Evis.

Mama assumed a rare expression of surprise. “Well, never ye mind, then.”

Gertriss went pale, put a hand up to cover her mouth. I turned to see what they were seeing.

The Regent isn’t a tall man. Nor is he physically remarkable in any way. He’s neither young nor old, fat nor thin, muscular nor flabby. His hair is dark, halfway between black and brown. His nose is neither hawkish nor flat. He’s got a chin, but I’ve seen stronger. He’s so unremarkable he can, for instance, walk through a crowded casino without attracting the kind of attention one would expect for the most powerful man in all the remnants of the Kingdom.

Oh, more than a few realized who it was that brushed past them. Faces turned his way. Jaws dropped. More than one celebrant assumed the panicked flush of the undiscovered criminal and darted unceremoniously for the Queen’s upper decks. But most just kept on drinking or rolling dice or glaring at their cards, unaware and blissful because of it.

The Regent might be physically unremarkable, but the woman on his arm was remarkable in every way. She wore a tight black gown worked with threads of silver that glittered and shone in the Queen’s magical lamps. Her long black hair was braided and piled high in the fashion of fine city ladies. Her shoulders and arms were scandalously bare, and the contrast of her pale skin and the black gown was striking. She didn’t smile. Her eyes, big and dark, never stopped moving among the crowd, and something in my gut told me she was more dangerous in that tight black gown than any two dozen of Avalante’s halfdead foot soldiers, guns or not.

“Well, damned if it ain’t His Highness hisself,” muttered Mama Hog. “Looks like he’s headin’ this way, too.” Mama gave Evis a wink. “Now, I’ll be more’n willing to share my taters with the man.”

Evis repeated his earthy expletive. Gertriss stood, putting her hand light on Mama Hog’s elbow.

“Mama, why don’t we take Buttercup upstairs?”

Mama hooted with laughter, but rose and threw down her napkin. “I was just messin’ with you, boy. Thank ye kindly for the meal. I’ll be leavin’ you to your business.”

And then she surprised us all by nodding, taking Buttercup by her hand, and walking quietly away.

Mama was right. The Regent was making a leisurely beeline right for us.

“Evis, say the word. Do we stay or go?”

“Stay,” said Evis. “If he’d wanted to talk privately he’d have sent for me.”

“We’ll keep it brief,” I said. “Just ‘Yes, Your Honor’ and ‘No, Your Honor.’ The less said the better.”

And then, without warning, the Regent stood before us.

“Do not stand,” he said. His voice was deep and smooth and he didn’t quite smile as he spoke. “And do not salute. Let’s not turn this into a state event.”

Dutson appeared, a pair of waiters in tow. Within seconds the table was cleared, a new tablecloth laid, and a pair of new places were set.

We kept our mouths shut. The Regent seated his lady friend and then settled into his own chair. We’d become the center of attention for maybe a dozen onlookers, but no more.

Like everyone else, I’ve heard rumors that the man is a secret sorcerer. At that moment, I believed it.

“I trust your accommodations are acceptable, sir.” It was Evis who broke the silence.

The Regent nodded curtly. A waiter I’d never seen placed a long-stemmed glass of wine by the Regent’s hand. He picked it up and made a show of swirling it about and smelling it, but he never brought it to his lips.

“They are more than adequate, Mr. Prestley. I commend your House.” He put down his untouched wine. “Mr. Markhat. Mrs. Markhat. Sorceress.”

Each of us nodded. Darla and I managed a somber ‘Your Honor.’

“You were attacked.” He spoke to me. His eyes, if you dared look into them, were brown. There wasn’t a damned thing ordinary about his gaze.

“I was. Or I seemed to be. I suppose the hex could have been randomly choosing targets and I got lucky.” Darla kicked me in my shin. “Your Honor.”

“I think not. Neither do you. We both suspect the next attempt on my life will occur soon. Perhaps at this table.” He shrugged and glanced at his silent companion. “I might as well taste the wine, don’t you think?”

She smiled, displaying teeth longer and sharper than any halfdead ever had. She blinked, and her eyes changed, showing yellow vertical slits. Long black talons sprang from her elegant fingertips.

The woman hissed. Her breath stank of the grave.

The Regent smiled a small smile, right at me. “My companion suggests caution.”

The woman blinked and her eyes were normal. She closed her lips. Her talons retracted. Each left a tiny drop of glistening venom where they had lain.

The Regent kept looking at me. I spoke only when it became obvious Evis wasn’t going to. “So your people didn’t manage to grab the attacker?”

Darla kicked me again.

“The attack was designed to occur only after my assailant was safely away,” replied the Regent. “The hexed dagger, as you call it, drew attention to you. While my staff was occupied determining the nature of that threat, the real attack commenced. It was invisible. Entirely arcane. Surprisingly powerful.”

I was seated two places down from the Regent, on a boat under attack by bogeymen right out of legend, being glared at by a female with talons and fangs. I decided we’d left our bag of caution back in Rannit and plowed in before Darla could contrive to stuff a napkin in my mouth.

“Old magic, was it? Something out of legend?”

“Precisely. Fortunately, I too have access to unique and powerful arcana. Isn’t that right, my dear?”

His woman purred. The sound of it raised every hair I had.

“And you think they might try again here, any moment.” In a crowded casino, I nearly added. And you took a seat right by my wife.

“It’s almost as if I’m taunting them, isn’t it, Mr. Markhat? Barging down here, my wand-wavers nowhere in sight, nothing to protect me but a single beautiful woman.” The creature’s purring grew louder. If she’d had a tail, she’d have swished it languidly. “That’s just the sort of behavior one might expect from an arrogant megalomaniac. Carelessly endangering the lives of innocents because he believes in his own innate invincibility.”

“Not what I said.”

“But what you meant. And, if that were the case, you would be correct. But I must ask you to trust me, Mr. Markhat. I assure you there is a method, as they say, to my madness.”

Trust you? I thought. Like the Corpsemaster trusted you?

Careful, said Stitches in a tiny whisper in my head. Think happy thoughts. Or at least not treasonous ones.

“You’re the boss,” I said. I met his eyes but didn’t attempt to smile. “We’re all just trying to get you to Bel Loit and back alive.”

“In that, I wish you luck. Now I will try my hand at the tables. Mr. Prestley. Join us.”

Evis rose with all the cheer and enthusiasm of a man bound for the gallows.

“Don’t be so glum, Mr. Prestley. I have no intention of looting Avalante’s coffers this evening. I am not a skilled gambler.”

“Somehow I doubt that. Your Honor,” I said. Darla hissed, but my words were out.

The Regent laughed. “Remember your mission, Mr. Markhat. Bel Loit and back, alive.”

His cat-eyed woman showed me her teeth again. Then the Regent turned and walked away, with Evis on his left, and the woman slinking on his right. Darla punched me in the ribs. “What happened to ‘Yes, Your Honor’ and ‘No, Your Honor?’“

I rose. “Light of my life, would you be so good as to see Mama put somewhere safe for the night, and send Gertriss my way?”

She frowned but nodded. “And then I’ll join you.”

We both shall, said Stitches. She stood too, keeping her hood pulled low on her face. I have some instruments to fetch.

“So you didn’t know the woman was a cat-thing either?”

You surprise me, Markhat. No. I did not. I assumed she was a bodyguard, perhaps a mistress. Nothing about her suggested an extraordinary nature.

“Another old magic, right out of legend?”

I simply do not know. She turned and made for the stair.

“What was that all about?” asked Darla.

“Surprises all around. Stitches has gone to fetch her good wands.”

“I’m beginning to wish we ran a dairy farm.” Darla found a grin. “I’ll be right back.”

I watched her vanish into the crowd. Then I unbuttoned my jacket and pulled out my new revolver and checked it right there at the table.

Toadsticker hung at my side. I had a facsimile magic tortoise shell in one pocket and a gun in a chest holster. I had a dagger in my right boot and my old Army knife in an ankle sheath on my left leg. I was armed as well as a well-dressed man could be, and I still felt naked, knowing what might be wandering around out there among the gamblers and the revelers and the well-heeled ne’er-do-wells.

I resolved to tear up my finder’s license and take up turnip ranching if and when the Queen docked back at Rannit.

I plunged into the crowd, looking for trouble.

Chapter Thirteen

Trouble, as always, wasn’t hard to find.

She’d not been a lovely woman. She’d had bug eyes and a weak chin and the kind of nose that evokes words such as “beak” or “proboscis” as descriptors. Her frown lines were deep and marked and spoke of a face set perpetually in a fierce, disapproving scowl.

Death had eased her scowl, at least. Now her bug eyes were wide open, as if in mild surprise.

Whoever stabbed her had done so with sufficient force to push a slender blade through her chest and through her heart and out her back. She died instantly, I guessed, since there was barely any blood from the single stab wound.

I found her sitting there-eyes open, head just beginning to slump-two tables from where Evis and the Regent and the Regent’s cat-eyed creature played roulette while a cheering crowd looked on.

I sat down beside her before she fell. I pulled her face close to mine and looked about.

The table was filled with empty glasses. The three other chairs were pushed back. I gathered the dead woman’s companions had found reasons to leave her alone. I hoped none would return before I came up with a way to get her body out of sight.

Finally, for lack of a better plan, I simply scooped her up, held her as though I was helping her walk, and headed for the nearest of the Queen’s opulent water closets.

She was light, all skin and bones. A minute ago she’d been alive. Scowling and bug-eyed, maybe, but alive. Someone had simply walked up to her and run her through, and I wondered if I could have saved her by being half a dozen steps closer or ten seconds faster.

I hit the door, which banged as it opened. Bright light washed over me, and I squinted as the attendant, a big man I recalled as Rainy Day, hurried to me.

“Sir,” he began. “This is the gentleman’s room. You can’t bring a lady in here.”

“Rainy, can you lock this door?”

“I said you can’t have a woman in here. This ain’t no place for that.”

I turned us so he could see her face. Even men who haven’t seen much death damned well know the look of it.

Rainy took in a quick breath. I remembered that Rainy seemed a bit slow. But he was catching on fast.

“Yes sir, I can lock it from the outside.”

“Lock it. Go find Evis. Tell him we’ve got another special problem. You got that? Say it for me.”

“I am to tell Mr. Prestley we have another special problem.”

“Good man. Get to it.”

He got, heeling and toeing it. I heard him lock the door and I laid the dead woman on the floor.

I was glad for the bright lights. I’d been right about the single stab wound. I hoped she’d died without suffering. She looked old and frail, there on the floor.

I closed her eyes. Noticed a trickle of blood dotting the right corner of her mouth.

When I pushed her lips and teeth apart, I saw that she had no tongue. It had been cut away. One clean slice. Done after she was stabbed. Almost no blood.

She had no pockets, of course. If she’d had a purse or a clutch, I’d foolishly left it behind.

Someone tried the restroom door handle.

I pulled my pistol.

“We’re full up in here,” I called. “Hit the next one.”

The handle stopped jiggling.

First eyes. Now a tongue. I reached the unsettling conclusion that someone-or something-was gathering the ingredients for a ritual, or a spell.

“I’m sorry you got caught up in this,” I said. She was losing color fast. “Sorry I didn’t stop it.”

I heard a key slide into the lock, heard Rainy speaking in excited tones just beyond the door. I didn’t holster my pistol.

The door opened and half a dozen Avalante soldiers piled in, two halfdead among them.

No Evis, though.

The two halfdead, oblivious to my drawn gun, joined me in kneeling around the body. I didn’t recognize either of them.

“Do you know her?” asked one.

“I don’t. She was stabbed. Her tongue was also removed.”

The other halfdead laid his palm upon her forehead and surprised me by saying a prayer.

“We have been instructed to remove the body via the dunways,” said the first when the prayer was done. “Mr. Prestley will see you shortly. Unless you can tell us who did this?”

I shook my head no. “The bastard is careful. I just saw her getting ready to fall. He was probably watching me the whole time, but no. I saw nothing.”

They nodded and took up the dead women as easily as I would heft a napkin.

“Report to Mr. Prestley,” said a halfdead to his living associates. “Double the security detail on the casino floor. Also the halls on the upper decks.”

“Yes, sir.”

And then they vanished, leaving me and Rainy alone.

A single spot of blood marred Rainy’s immaculate floor.

“It ain’t right,” he said as he fetched rags and a bucket. “Killin’ women like that.” He knelt and began to scrub. “But you’re Captain Markhat. You’re goin’ to catch the man what did this, ain’t you?”

“I hope so.”

“I hope so too.”

Rainy scrubbed. I walked, the dead woman’s eyes still clear in my mind.

Darla found me before I’d gone a dozen steps beyond the bathroom.

“Oh no.”

I took her hand and forced a grin. “Another murder. I’ve taken care of the body. Keep an eye out for Stitches.”

Darla forced her own smile for the benefit of anyone watching, and added a laugh as well. “Who, honey?”

“I don’t know. A woman. Let’s go watch the Regent.”

Darla nodded and took my arm as we ambled toward the Regent’s cheering retinue.

“Mama’s upstairs with Buttercup. I had to put her in our room.”

“Buttercup would wind up with us anyway.”

“You’re rattled, husband.” We elbowed our way through a tight-packed mob of men watching some complicated game of dice and spinning wheels marked with grinning skulls. “Bad, was it?”

“Took her tongue.”

Darla squeezed my arm and said nothing.

“Dammit, Stitches, where are you?”

We were close enough to the Regent’s card table to see Evis’s back and the top of the cat-woman’s hair. I was about to shove my way through to Evis when someone yanked at my sleeve.

“Boy.” Mama glared up at me. “I ain’t no fancy Dark House wand-waver, but I seen some things and heared some things and I come to tell you whether you wants to listen or not.” Mama saw Darla’s questioning glance and snorted. “I left the young ‘un with Gertriss. Might keep her out of harm’s way for a bit. Now. We needs to talk.”

“That we do, Mama. I’m glad to see you.”

“Somebody knock you one in the head?”

“Not yet, but I’m sure they’ve got plans in that regard.” Evis and the Regent were surrounded by twenty or more of Avalante’s most lethal waiters. I figured another forty or so were hiding in the shadows, ready to pounce.

“Let’s find a quiet corner somewhere.”

We did. It just happened to be a table right next to the restroom where Rainy was probably still scrubbing blood off the floor. I got everyone seated, put my back to the wall, and raised my voice as much as I dared.

“Mama,” I said. “I’ve got a hunch. So tell me-if I handed you a bag and in it I had a man’s two eyes and a woman’s tongue, what could you make out of it?”

Mama pondered for a moment.

“That ain’t no kind of magic for the likes of you or me,” she said. “Don’t reckon I could do nothin’. But…”

“Dammit, Mama, but what?”

Mama leaned toward me. “Was the woman what they call sharp-tongued?”

“Hell if I know.” I thought back to her face. “Probably. Say she was. What then?”

“It’s what you’d call an old wives’ tale. ‘Sharp eyes, sharp tongue, sharp ears, infant’s lung.’“

“Ghastly,” said Darla. She pulled her gun, not even bothering to hide it anymore.

“It ain’t nothin’ but an old song now,” said Mama. “But it’s a song about Elves. How they could make their selves invisible. Move about, murderin’ and stealin’. Damn, boy.” She made some complicated gesture with her hands. “Ain’t been a Elf seen on this side of the Sea for ten hundred years. You sayin’ there’s one running around loose on this here boat?”

“I’m not saying that, Mama. But someone took a man’s eyes, and a woman’s tongue. I’m just wondering why, and what they might want next.”

Sharp eyes, sharp tongue, sharp ears, infant’s lung.

“Ain’t a baby on this tub,” announced Mama. “I’d know, and there ain’t.”

“Buttercup,” said Darla in a whisper. “Some might consider her a child. A babe. Words change with time.” Her eyes went bright and hard. “Shall I go sit with Gertriss?”

“You’re not leaving my sight. Buttercup probably ate the last Elf this side of the Sea a thousand years ago. Relax. She’s the safest soul aboard.”

“If’n this is a Elf,” said Mama, scratching at her hairy chin, “then we got troubles, boy. A Elf can use that Elf magic-what they calls a glamour-to make you see things that ain’t there, or not see things what is.”

“Is that true, Mama, or just an old wives’ tale?”

“Well, it ain’t like I got an Elf in my closet to study on. But I reckon them stories is better’n half true. Elves was mean and cruel and tricky, and they’d as soon gut ye as say hello. And since they can make out to be people they ain’t, they’re damn good at the guttin’ part.”

A dread inspiration hit. Elves. Summer-born, as Stitches put it. What if a summer-born Elf and its unnaturally powerful glamour stepped undetected through her magical testing dingus?

What if the Elf had been with us all along, blithely sidestepping Stitches and her sophisticated arcane tools since we’d left Rannit?

And what if they were gathering ingredients for a grisly spellwork that would make them truly invisible?

“Eyes, tongues, ears, lungs,” I said aloud. Ears would be easy to find. Lungs not so much, especially from an infant.

Unless they brought them aboard in the first place.

What the devil are you talking about?

Stitches stood beside me. In one hand she held a glowing glass rod, wrapped in copper wires, with complicated spinning vanes whirling away at each end. A floating crystal ball hung above her other hand. The crystal was lit blood-red from within.

“Found another body. This one missing her tongue. Mama remembers an old song about Elves.”

“Sharp eyes, sharp tongue, sharp ears, infant’s lung,” said Mama, giving Stitches a good hard country glare. “That’s how the Elves of olden days took to sneakin’ about, doin’ their killin’.”

The glow from the crystal ball changed from red to a sudden brilliant white, bright enough to light Stitches’s ruined face. She passed the glass rod over her crystal ball and the noise around us vanished.

If a living Elf is among us, we are undone.

“Thanks for the pep talk.”

Silence. She hummed to her crystal. It muttered back, flashing on each dissonant word. The vanes at the end of her staff began to spit sparks and tiny bolts of crackling lightning.

“We kilt the last full-blood Elf before my great-great granddaddy’s time,” said Mama. “You reckon somebody was fool enough to lock one down somewhere deep and turn it loose on us?”

Stitches shrugged, and her crystal ball vanished.

I cannot say. There is either no unsanctioned magic within the shield, or there is magic beyond the ken of my means to detect it. Markhat. These murders. Could they have been committed by purely mundane means?

“Somebody cut a woman’s tongue right out of her head, half a dozen steps from fifty people.” I shrugged. “Go ahead. Say an ordinary man with a good sharp knife managed that. We’re still left with the question why. Why not cut her throat, throw the body into the crowd? You want a panic, that’s a good way to start one.”

“You knows about Elves, don’t ye?” Mama was trying her best not to be insulting. That alone sent shivers down my spine. “Am I right about that old tale, or not?”

You are correct. Elves were known to collect body parts as components of purely Elvish spell dynamics. The one you reference was reputed to allow easy movement among mankind.

“Easy movement. As in invisible,” I said.

I do not know the specifics of the spell. I suppose it is possible.

The ghost of an idea presented itself.

“So we’re seeing it now. The Elf or whatever it is. Seeing it-just not recognizing it.”

Despite my best efforts, that appears to be the case.

Mama leaned forward, peering at me from behind ragged locks of wild grey hair.

“Well, tell it, boy. ‘Fore somebody loses ears and such.”

“Old wives’ tales. You know a lot of them, do you? Mama? Stitches?”

“I knows ‘em all.”

I am familiar with Old Kingdom folklore.

“Then start making a list. Ash-wood and iron against Elves. Salt and milk against ghosts. Butter and corn husks against goblins.”

“It ain’t butter, it’s buttermilk,” said Mama. “What are ye gettin’ at?”

“We’ll need a pot. The biggest pot you can find. I want it right here, out where everybody can see it. On the boil, right now.”

Stitches turned. I didn’t hear what she said, but half a dozen well-muscled waiters gathered quickly around, listened for a moment, and then nodded before hurrying away.

A portable stove and a stew-pot are on the way. I assume it is to be filled with the contents of our lists?

“Exactly.”

“What the hell good will that do, boy? We ain’t likely to find half of what you want, and even if we did, you know damned well most of them old charms is nothin’ but nonsense.”

“Stitches, can you rig up some kind of magical Elf-hunting dingus? Something to stir the pot with?”

If I could detect this creature, finder, I assure you I would already have done so.

“That’s not the point. Listen. If this thing is as old as you think it is, and if it’s been imprisoned or asleep for the last thousand years, it may be as unfamiliar with your new magic and you are with its old.”

“So you just aims to fool it into thinkin’ we knows a way to hex it?”

“I want to make it nervous. I want it to think we’re onto it. I want to give it something to be puzzled about for a change.”

Stitches was silent for a long moment.

I can offer no superior alternative. She rattled off another round of nonsense words, and the chatter and tinkle and laughter of the casino floor returned. Missus Hog. Shall we begin compiling our list?

Mama shook her shaggy head. “Ash and iron,” she began. “But it’s got to be new iron, what ain’t never rusted…”

Finding Evis wasn’t easy. By remaining at the Regent’s side, he’d put himself in the center of a ring of determined bodyguards, and even my winning smile was barely sufficient to charm my way through them.

By the time I did get close enough to whisper in Evis’s ear, I’d been deprived of Toadsticker, my gun, both my knives, my brass knuckles, and even the coins in my pockets. I was beginning to think my shoes might be confiscated as well, given the somewhat pointy nature of the toes.

Evis, when I did reach him, was as pale and as weary-looking as any corpse I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting.

I briefed him in whispers, leaving out a detail here and there in case anyone nearby was hiding pointy ears and a pocketful of tongues. He nodded grim assent.

“Keep her safe,” was all he said. I knew who he meant.

Then the Regent’s slinky creature turned her gaze upon us, and I sidled quickly away. I managed to retrieve all my items and headed back to check on Mama and Stitches.

Tables had been cleared to form a space twenty feet across. A silver rolling service cart sat in the middle, its top cut away and a grid of metal rods laid on it to support an enormous steel stew-pot.

On the bottom shelf of the cart, a small fire was already burning, its flames just beginning to lick the pot.

Dutson appeared, trying with little success to hide a scowl at the sight of sparks burning scars in his beloved casino floor. He hauled another serving cart behind him, this one filled with glass jugs of water.

“The water, sir,” he intoned as a trio of waiters filled the stew-pot with the contents of the jugs. “Might I suggest we cover the floor with a cloth of some sort?”

“Good idea,” I said, hoping my tone didn’t convey my utter disinterest in the state of the Queen’s floor coverings. “See to it, won’t you?”

He shuffled off, radiating disdain.

Mama huffed up, her arms filled with jars and brick-a-brac, which she dumped at my feet.

“I had to knee a cook in his privates, but I got us all the common things,” she said, pointing and muttering. “Salt and sugar. Charcoal from an oven. White flour, corn flour, fresh tobacco, black pepper, red pepper…”

“Capital,” I said before she could finish her list. Darla poked at the pile with the toe of her shoe.

“Is that a silver thimble?”

“It is, and the woman whose hat I snatched it from ain’t happy.” She grinned. “But I reckon gettin’ folks riled up was half the point.”

I made frantic shushing motions, as Stitches and her silence spell were nowhere near, and Mama was all but outlining the heart of our deception. Mama chuckled and rummaged in her ever-present burlap bag. “I’ll get started on what I gots, boy.” She hauled out a pair of moth-eaten dried owls. “Gonna hex this but good, I tells ye.”

With that, she plopped down on the floor, used a tiny pot of something black and thick to inscribe a circle around herself and her pile of arcane goodies, and began to mumble and wave her owls over the stack of herbs and trinkets.

Dutson reappeared, a tarp folded carefully in his hands. He saw Mama, saw her circle, and dropped the tarp in disgust before stomping away without a word.

“There goes my beer supply.”

“Here’s Evis,” said Darla, nodding off into the shadows. “He doesn’t look happy.”

He didn’t.

“The Regent winning big?”

“Every hand. But that’s not the problem. I’ve lost contact with the shore patrols.”

“I didn’t know we had shore patrols.”

“They were secret shore patrols. Four hundred men. Both banks. Keeping pace with us, scouting the woods for any sign of ambush. They reported in every half-hour. They missed the last report and aren’t responding to our messages.”

“How are you talking to anyone outside the shield?”

“Longtalker. We’ve improved it. Much smaller, better range.”

I remembered the enormous, spark-spitting contraption I’d once used, far below Avalante, to speak to Evis from a distance.

“Maybe it just stopped working.”

“We’re still in touch with the House,” replied Evis. “No. Something wiped out the patrols. Which means they found an ambush up ahead.”

Darla handed Evis a drink, which he downed in a single gulp. “So we turn around,” she said. “Go back to Rannit.”

“That’s what I said. He said no. We are to continue on to Bel Loit, no change in course or speed. No discussion.”

I took a good hard look around. “So we turn around anyway.”

“Half the crew is ready to do just that,” said Evis. He crushed the glass in his hand. “We can’t, Markhat. His people could run the Queen without any of us. They’d not hesitate to butcher us all if it came to that. You know we can’t take them.”

I cussed. Darla pretended not to notice.

“We’re being used.”

“From the start. Damn it all. Look. Take this.” He pressed a long fat key into my hand. “Behind the stage. Right center. Waist level. There’s a knothole in the wainscoting shaped like a face. Stick this in the nose. The dunway behind it leads to a fake boiler down in the engine room. It’s lined with lead, silver, everything we could think of to keep the occupants safe from magical attack and physical blows. Not even Stitches knows. Use it if you have to.”

“Maybe it won’t come to that.”

“Maybe.” He didn’t sound convinced. “One more thing. The Regent knows about the huldra somehow. Said he wants you to let his companion hold it for a second. Claims she can jazz it up.”

I didn’t like that. His knowing or his help, either one.

Darla put her hand on Evis’s shoulder. “What about you? Where will you go, if…”

“I started this mess. Put my people in harm’s way. I’ll see it through. Make sure Gertriss gets there with you. Markhat, I never told you this, but you married above your station. Angels help us all.”

And he turned and was gone, vampire-quick.

Stitches appeared at the edge of our cleared space, a pair of duffle bags thrown over her shoulder. They looked heavy but she bore them as if they were filled with feathers and moonlight.

Darla said nothing as I gave her the key.

“Mind my sacred-ass circle,” gruffed Mama as Stitches neared.

I have the items we require, said Stitches, dropping her duffels close to Mama. A work table would speed the process.

“Too good to sit on the floor,” said Mama with a sniff.

“One work table on the way,” I said before Mama could further expand her oratory on the spoiled nature of modern sorcerers. Darla was already at the nearest table, though, brushing aside the protests of its current occupants first with her winning smile and then with a casual wave of her unladylike gun.

I fetched the chair.

Once seated, Stitches worked quickly to erect her apparatus, which she positioned right next to the steaming steel stew-pot. Within moments she had constructed a sturdy metal scaffold, through which a complex system of glass tubes and copper hoses began to take shape. Glass globes fitted to accept tubes and lines were hung, wires were strung, and within minutes, sparks and glows came to life amid the turnings and workings, raising a chorus of ohs and ahs from the crowd that gathered at a respectful distance.

Mama glared at the circles of faces fixed on Stitches and her apparatus. “Well, it’s awful purty, if ye are wantin’ to decorate a young-uns play-room,” she grumbled. She snapped her fingers and barked out a word, causing a column of burning, coiling smoke to shoot from her pile of items. People screamed and leaped back. Mama hid a grin and went back to her muttering.

Your Mama Hog is quite the performer, said Stitches in what I recognized as her version of a whisper in my head.

“I’ll ask her to tone it down,” I whispered back at her.

No. The showier the better. I plan similar theatrics of my own.

“Can’t wait to see them.” I found a long copper ladle and stirred the bubbling pot. “Think we’re going to live through this?”

She just shrugged and busied herself with her sputtering, burbling machine.

Darla joined me at the pot, holding a napkin at arm’s length and wrinkling her nose. She shook the cloth out in the pot, eyed the stain left behind by something malodorous, and dumped the napkin in as well.

I stirred, turning my face away from the sudden rotting-meat stench.

“Tell me that did not come from the kitchen,” I said.

She was about to reply when the dead man came walking down the grand stairs.

I’d wrapped him in a blanket. I’d checked him for a pulse. I’d never forget that bloody eyeless face. I knew it was him, up and moving, though no spark of life remained.

People saw and screamed. A few rushed to help. Even in the dim light, you could easily see that his eyes had been gouged out. The way he walked, wobbly-legged, arms held out before him, made him appear gravely injured.

Before I could do more than draw my gun, the first of his would-be rescuers reached him. The dead man fell toward them, arms stretched wide, and caught two in a tight embrace. They all three went down, rolling and flapping, finally landing in a heap at the bottom of the stairs.

By then I’d managed to shove my way nearly there. I was close enough to hear the two men the corpse had grabbed start screaming, close enough to see them stumble to their feet, clawing at their own eyes, charging headlong into the crowd.

The dead man rose, laid his hands on the chest of the man nearest him.

That man too began screaming.

Then the screaming man took up a fork and put out his own eyes.

I threw someone aside and took careful aim and put all six rounds square in the dead man’s chest.

I might as well have tossed roses. He opened his mouth and made a wet burbling noise and came stomping toward me.

My gunfire had at least scattered the crowd. I backed away at a quick walk, waving my arms and keeping the blind corpse moving toward me. I figured I had a good twenty feet of floor before my back found the wall.

I hadn’t figured on an overturned chair. I tripped over the damned thing, dropped my fresh slugs, nearly let the corpse lay a cold white hand on me before I managed to scramble up and scamper away.

Darla appeared, guns blazing. Her shots had no more effect than mine.

I drew Toadsticker. Before I could swing him, a dozen halfdead sailed down the stairs, and twice that poured out of the shadows behind us.

They fell on the dead man like furious crows, silver blades flashing. I saw him grab, saw him take hold a few times, but the halfdead just shrugged him off and kept hacking.

Their blows had far less effect than they should have. Swords broke. Crossbow bolts barely penetrated the dead man’s loose skin-until the Regent’s creature entered the fray.

She didn’t charge in. She didn’t even rush. She strolled up to the dead man, plucked a pair of halfdead out of his grasp and cast them away. When the walking corpse laid his hands upon her, she simply took hold of his wrists and held them still.

The ring of halfdead closed in, blades flashing. Where a moment ago their swords had been useless, now they bit deep. Thick black blood flew.

It didn’t take long. Darla turned away. I loaded my gun and put it in my pocket and joined the ring of halfdead at the corpse.

The pieces still twitched and struggled. The mouth worked, teeth clacking, white tongue testing the air like some blind damp worm. The hands still tried to crawl and clench into fists, though each was pinned to the deck with a fine silver blade.

Small groups of halfdead managed to push the gamblers who’d been touched against the floor. All but one writhed and bellowed. Blood pooled under the still man, black in the dim light.

“Boy,” said Mama Hog, who came stamping up behind me, her infamous meat cleaver in one hand and a red-tipped fire poker in the other. “Boy, that wand-waver needs you, right now.”

I didn’t have to ask. A dozen halfdead nodded and broke ranks, flanking me and Mama without a word or a sound.

Stitches was standing near the stage, her metal-vaned staff glowing in her hands. Darla was beside her, guns drawn.

Do not come near. Sorcery is at work here.

I approached to stand by Darla. Mama stomped up as well, keeping the hot end of her poker in constant motion.

“What the hell?”

Things looked almost normal, at first. Couples were dancing, some in the decadent modern style made recently popular by a finder and his wife, some in the formal bows and turns of an Old Kingdom dance.

The casino was largely empty. The appearance of the walking dead has a tendency to clear a room. But these people danced, and danced, and from the looks of horror on their faces, and the way their jaws worked-trying to scream-it was obvious they were being compelled to dance.

“Dammit, tell the musicians to stop,” I said.

“They can’t,” said Darla. “None of them can.”

A woman twirled past, her arms raised, her feet moving in perfect time to the waltz. She should have been smiling.

She was trying to cry out.

A man rushed up to her, shouting and pleading. He stood in her way and she knocked him aside. He tried to grab her, to pick her up and carry her away, but even with her feet off the floor, she continued to spin and twirl, dragging him with her.

He kept shouting, calling her name. In desperation, he reached up and took her hands.

As soon as they joined hands, he stopped shouting. His feet began to move in time with hers. He tried to speak but couldn’t open his mouth.

His eyes lost focus.

They twirled silently away, and were gone.

“It’s a geas,” said Mama. She spat. “Damn, these here people is liable to dance ’til they’re dancin’ on nubs.”

A woman brushed past us and joined the dancers in a jerky, tortured path across the floor, her hand held up to a partner who wasn’t there.

More are being called. I cannot stop it.

I took Darla’s hand, motioned to Stitches. “Would something like this need a hexed object?”

Damned if I know.

I spied something on an empty table just beyond the range of the dancers and took a couple of steps to get a better look.

A small ornate chest, all brass and dark wood, sat on the table. Atop it, two tiny dancers spun in an endless circle.

“Stitches. Do you see that?”

Before Stitches could reply, Mama trundled past me. She brought her poker down on the music box with a wild yell.

The mechanical dancers danced on, unbroken.

Mama howled and swung her poker sideways. It struck the music box with a clang and bounced out of Mama’s hand, leaving the box intact and in place.

Mama hacked away with her cleaver, which raised sparks and left deep gouges in the table but couldn’t land a solid blow on the music box. Mama cussed and adopted a two-handed stance that probably would have decapitated Trolls but merely left her huffing and puffing as she circled the music box, swinging.

Stitches marched up beside Mama and brought her staff down hard on the clockwork dancers. There was a crack of thunder and Mama stepped back, still wheezing and puffing.

The tiny dancers danced on, unharmed.

This artifact must be summer-born. Stitches backed away from it. I advise keeping your distance.

“Markhat.” I turned, recognizing the voice and having no idea how the Regent had come to stand beside me. “The huldra. Give it to her.”

His creature oozed up, smiling at me, her right hand outstretched. It should have been covered in blood. There wasn’t a drop to be seen.

I hauled the false huldra out of my pocket and handed it to her.

She took it. We touched, just for an instant, and I had to fight not to jerk my hand back. Touching her was touching something far, far colder than the coldest winter ice.

She held the huldra in her right hand. Black talons emerged from her fingers, a tiny drop of venom glistening at the tip of each. She squeezed her hand, and one by one her talons penetrated the black wax that sealed the false huldra’s tortoise shell.

When her talons were buried in the wax, she closed her eyes, threw back her head, and howled, writhing like a devil right out of the Book.

“Damn,” said Mama, summing up my emotions quite well.

It straightened, opened its eyes, and pushed the huldra back toward me, its talons withdrawn. I thought about the venom and snatched up a discarded linen napkin and shoved the damned thing back in my pocket.

About us, men rendered mad by a walking corpse’s touch, screamed. Dancers in the grip of a deadly spell moved, pirouetting and spinning and swaying, their eyes wide with terror. Gunshots rang out sporadically-pop pop pop-and I heard wood splinter off in the dark.

“I believe I shall retire for the evening,” said the Regent. He offered his creature his arm, and she took it, still smiling that deadly small smile.

They walked through the dancers, untouched.

Stitches pulled me and Darla away from the music box.

I am unable to determine its method of selection, she began. But given time-

Screams arose from our right, and a small band of revelers who had taken refuge behind a makeshift barricade of tables and gambling machines broke into sudden panicked flight past us.

Mama cussed and raised her cleaver. Stitches spun her staff, causing it to shine a bright blood red and emit a high-pitched whine.

Evis moved to stand at my side. He held an enormous double-barreled rifle, to which a light was attached. He aimed it toward the far wall.

I squinted, but saw nothing save for shadow.

Mama Hog followed the light too, and cussed.

“Don’t look,” she shrieked. “Don’t nobody look!”

I looked. It was just a shadow in a roomful of shadows. Darker, perhaps.

Deeper.

My mother appeared, in the same threadbare apron she’d worn, I supposed, every day of her life.

She waved and smiled. I’d taken a step before I realized what I was doing, before I remembered burying Mom in a poor man’s boneyard on a rainy day in winter.

Mama stamped hard on my foot.

“Dammit, I told you not to look!”

I turned away, more angry than afraid.

Darla turned to face me, tears in her eyes. I’ve never asked who she saw. She’s never told.

Screams sounded. I glanced that way, saw a man in an old Army dress uniform being dragged into the shadow by a dozen pairs of emaciated hands.

When he reached the place where the wall should have been, his screams simply ceased, and we faced nothing but shadow once again.

An ethereal interface, said Stitches. One born of blood sacrifice.

“What the hell? I don’t see any corpses.”

I too am puzzled. But I estimate at least ten deaths would be required to commence the process.

I groaned. “Would they have to take place all at once?”

No. But we have not had ten fatalities all evening, by my count.

“The accidents during the Queen’s construction. The curse. Damned if it wasn’t a curse after all.”

Our internal investigation revealed no foul play in any of the accidents.

“We can ponder that later.” Evis motioned toward the shadow. “If it’s what I think it is, where does it lead?”

“Leads to Hell itself,” muttered Mama. She charged suddenly toward the shadow, tackling a woman in waiter’s garb before she could get close.

I joined her, dragging the woman back though she fought and begged.

Darla threw a glass of water in the woman’s face when we wrestled her back to the stage. Evis ordered a pair of halfdead to take her to her room.

“The other corpse,” I managed, winded after my struggle with the woman. “She’ll probably rise too.”

“Already has,” replied Evis, who kept his eyes on the shadow. “Guards heard her banging around in the closet where they’d stashed the body.”

“They go nuts too?”

Evis shook his head. “Hardly. They nailed the door shut without opening it. They knew dead when they saw it.”

“Bright lads.”

Evis nodded. “What do you think would happen if I laid this rifle barrel right against that music box and pulled the trigger?”

“Not a damned thing.”

Evis sighed. “I hate it when you’re right, Markhat. Didn’t scratch the thing. Got any ideas?”

“One crisis at a time.” I gestured toward the shadow. “What about putting a dozen of your men in a half circle around that with their backs to it? To keep people from wandering too close?”

He barked orders. Halfdead took their places, horror at their backs. If any of them were fearful they didn’t let it show.

One drunk wobbled up, shouting to someone only he could see and trying to sidle past. He got a rifle butt to his face for his trouble. A waiter grabbed him by one leg and dragged him off to safety.

I caught Darla staring at the shadowed place again. “No,” she said before I could ask the question. “I’m not looking into it. Just at it. And honey, I believe it’s getting larger, by the minute.”

Evis glanced at Stitches. “Is it?”

Stitches aimed her glass staff that way. The metal vanes whirled.

Yes. Its boundaries are moving. I may be able to slow it down. But I cannot halt its expansion entirely.

A bony hand emerged from the dark, groping blindly about. Another joined it, grasping at empty air with fingers that dropped flakes of desiccated flesh.

Stitches hurled a sizzling arc of crackling light full into the shadow, right over the heads of the Avalante soldiers. The skeletal hands withdrew but the darkness remained.

One of Evis’s halfdead soldiers broke from his post about the shadow, walking jerkily toward us, as though injured or ill. His rifle fell from his grasp as he drew near.

“Damn,” said Mama. “Didn’t think I’d see no halfdead get called to dance.”

Evis opened his mouth to protest, but the halfdead brushed past us, his dead eyes wide and dry, his mouth open as if trying to speak.

He took his place amid the other dancers, and began to spin and turn.

“That isn’t possible,” said Evis.

I beg to differ. Stitches stared, eyes moving back and forth like those of a dreamer, behind her tight-sewn eyelids.

The capture of dancers is increasing in frequency, at a rate that appears commensurate with the expansion of the shadow.

“So we can either be grabbed by whatever is in the dark, or be forced to dance until our legs wear down to stumps, is that it?”

Not entirely. That which lies beyond the shadow is beginning to emerge. In doing so, it is inducing small but fundamental changes to the nature of reality within the Queen’s shield.

“The air feels funny,” agreed Mama with a frown. “So somethin’ is aimin’ to choke us out?”

It appears so. If I am correct, the changes exerted by the shadow will soon render our reality compatible with that which lies beyond.

“Which lets them just stroll out and snack on the dancers,” I said.

Stitches nodded. Unless I collapse the shield.

“Doing that leaves us open to an ambush by Hag Mary and her pals,” said Evis. “Someone has thought of everything.”

A new pair of skeletal hands appeared from the growing shadow. Evis barked a command, and his ring of foot soldiers turned and fired.

Finger-bones shattered and flew.

Something in the dark howled with laughter.

A door slammed. I heard shouts, arguing, a man’s voiced, raised and furious, and a woman’s, soft but stern.

Lady Rondalee herself took the stage.

“The band can’t stop playing,” she said to Evis. “Am I right that those folks can’t stop dancing?”

Evis nodded. “You should get to your room,” he said. “It isn’t safe here.”

Lady Rondalee laughed. “Child, it’s not safe anywhere on the Brown River tonight. But I was hired to sing and sing I shall. Maybe I can do some good that way. Ease these poor souls’ pain.”

Evis frowned. Mama spoke before he could.

“I reckon we all best be doin’ whatever we can, and no mistake,” she said. “If’n you knows the risk.”

“All too well.” The Lady Rondalee smiled down at Mama. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Hog.”

“Likewise, Lady of Bel Loit.”

And the Lady Rondalee began to sing.

She didn’t have music. The musicians were playing, all right, in that their hands were moving and they were making noise, but it was just noise now-tooting and twanging and discordant strumming.

The Lady Rondalee didn’t need music. She carried her own deep down in her voice, and when she sang the dancers slowed and the musicians slumped, panting and sweating, but able to steal just a moment of precious rest.

Evis gave orders. In a moment, the recorded music began to play, and the Lady used it, her voice soaring and soothing with the foreign, melancholy tune.

“She’s buyin’ us some time,” said Mama, glaring at the music box. From the look on her face, I could tell she was weighing the risk of taking one last spiteful swipe at it. “We’d best be about puttin’ it to good use.”

Darla dodged out of the way of a new dancer. “Mama, how is she doing that? Slowing them down, I mean?”

“Don’t know. They got their own magic, down Bel Loit way. I’ve heard the name Rondalee. They say she can sing up hexes like nobody’s business.”

On stage, the Lady Rondalee must have heard, because she bowed and smiled, never missing a beat.

I hauled Darla away from the weary dancers and back to our makeshift cauldron, Mama and Evis and Stitches in tow.

Armed halfdead prowled the deserted casino. More skeletal arms began to emerge from the dark. Evis forbade his men from wasting ammunition by firing on them. He held a quick conference with a trio of black-shirted day folk, and they hurried toward the main doors and out into the night.

“Let’s get this done,” said Evis, glaring at our boiling stew pot. “Stitches, Mama, how much longer?”

Another hour, perhaps an hour and ten.

Mama dropped to her haunches and started poking at her pile of trinkets and herbs. “‘Bout the same, I reckon.”

Another vacant-eyed reveler raised a ruckus by tangling with the halfdead trying to keep people away from the stricken dancers. The new dancer broke free and started twirling while the halfdead watched helplessly.

“I’ve got an idea,” I said. “What if I throw yonder music box into the shadow?”

“How you reckon on movin’ it at all?” Mama shook her shaggy head. “I tell ye, boy, it might as well be bolted to the floor.”

“Mama. That rope that got you here. Still got it?”

Mama nodded. “Right here in my sack.” She wanted to ask me what made me think a banshee-hair rope would be able to pull the music box when she couldn’t budge it, but she was wise enough not to ask it aloud.

I was glad. Because I didn’t have an answer. For all I knew a rope woven with Buttercup’s golden locks wouldn’t do a damned thing against a magical item of such potency, but then again I doubted even a summer-born Elf suspected a banshee was nearby.

“I need it, if it’s handy.”

“If it please ye.” Mama rummaged in her burlap sack, withdrew a number of ragged dried birds, and finally produced a tangle of what I first took for twine.

She pitched it to me.

“You call this a rope?” It was as thick as a pencil and already beginning to unravel here and there.

“At two pence a foot, you’re damn right I call it a rope,” said Mama. “I weren’t aimin’ to pull no millstones.”

I sat and started untangling the mess. Mama went back to her piles, muttering all the while.

“Angels and horses,” said Evis, lifting his weapon. “Stitches, can you spare a moment?”

The darkness on the wall disgorged a human skeleton-whole, complete, and animated. It bore a long, curved sword, and managed to take half a dozen tentative steps toward the nearest of the Avalante guards before an invisible barrier halted its advance.

Another bony revenant stepped from the shadow, and another, until a dozen of them pressed against a wall we couldn’t see.

Elemental constructs, said Stitches. I presume they are the vanguard for more sophisticated entities which cannot yet exist in our world. She sounded almost disappointed at the pronouncement. Still. The volume of influence is expanding more rapidly than I expected.

“If we shoot them, will they fall?”

Yes, if they suffer sufficient structural degradation. Make your shots count. Their numbers could range from finite but uncountable, to practical infinity.

Evis barked an order. Rifles cracked. Bones splintered and skeletons fell.

Immediately, more began to march out of the dark. This time, they advanced half a step farther than their now-broken brethren.

A new pair of dancers lurched toward the stage. Evis’s men made no move to stop them. While I watched, another halfdead joined the dancers, his black cloak rendering him nearly invisible as he moved.

Another volley of rifles sounded, and another wave of bones fell, only to be replaced by twice their number. I fought off the urge to open fire myself, and concentrated on unraveling Mama’s damp tangle of banshee-hair rope.

Two of the three men Evis sent outside came racing back. One was bleeding from a chest wound. The other was wrapping his bloody hand with a towel while he whispered to Evis.

I saw it in his eyes before he could speak. “I sent them to the piston deck,” he said as they left to tend their wounds. “The wheelhouse is gone. Full of that.” Evis pointed to the shadow. “Can’t get below decks either. Shadows and bone-men where the hatch used to be.”

The Queen’s pistons still beat beneath my feet. I could hear the wet slap of her wheel faint above the music.

“We’re still moving.”

“She was built to be unstoppable.” Evis fired, causing Mama to cuss and a skeleton man’s skull to explode. “Damn it, Markhat. Is this stew-pot and that contraption the best we’ve got?”

“No.” I’d been waiting for the right moment and decided this one was as good as any. There were people milling about. The odds that one of them was our Elf probably wouldn’t be improved by waiting. “We’ve got this.”

I pulled the false huldra out of my pocket and held it up for all to see.

Mama sprang to her feet, yelling and cussing. Evis took a step back, genuinely startled.

The last time I’d held a huldra-the real one-I’d nearly killed Evis and Mama both.

“Damn, boy, have you lost your mind?” Mama reached into her bag with both hands and pulled out dried, ragged bird-corpses by the handful. “You know that cursed thing will eat you alive!”

“I was told you destroyed it,” said Evis. “I was told it was gone forever.”

“It’s the only way, Mama.” I lowered the thing. Everyone on the floor had seen and all were listening. “Even it might not be enough by itself. But with this rig and Stitches’s help, I’m going to add Elf meat to my stew-pot by sunrise. Wait and see.”

Mama shook birds at me and muttered softly. Evis kept his rifle aimed at the floor, but I could almost see him trying to decide how quickly he could bring it to bear if I showed signs of being taken by the huldra.

Darla made a remarkable good show of trying to grab the thing. When I resisted, she pretended to weep, keeping her fists balled over her eyes so no one would notice the lack of tears.

“You’ve all got things to do,” I said. “What’s done is done. Let’s get back to work.”

I slipped the tortoise shell back into my pocket.

Well played, said Stitches in her secret whisper. I knew you would find a use for it.

I didn’t reply.

The last time I’d walked with the huldra, I’d become a giant, my eyes far above the rooftops and the spires and the smoke-belching stacks of the crematoriums and the foundries. As I’d walked, the huldra had whispered things to me, things I could only now recall as vague, dreamlike memories.

I’d been offered power. Been shown dark wonders. I’d been able to see into the spaces between shadow and light, and the secret things I’d seen within had allowed me to not just work magic, but bend it to my will.

As I let go of the fake huldra, a small greedy part of me wished for that power again, if only for an instant, and the hair on the back of my neck rose at the faint memory of having such a thing in my grasp.

Mama cussed and rose to her feet, her cleaver appearing in her hand.

Evis dropped his rifle.

I turned. Darla caught my elbow, real tears forming in her eyes.

Walking down the grand staircase, her movements jerky and halting, came Gertriss.

Her stare was vacant. Her mouth moved, but no words came out.

Buttercup skipped along beside her, a doll in each hand, holding them up to Gertriss, waving them about her, trying to make her play.

Gertriss reached the bottom of the stairs and made for the rest of the dancers.

“Oh hell no,” said Mama, starting off after her. “Not my kin.”

There is nothing you can do for her, save keep working.

Evis charged after, unarmed.

Three halfdead responded to Evis and his orders to keep Gertriss from joining the dance. Two took an arm each. The third tried to wrap his arms around her knees and hold her still.

She dragged them all, one halting step at a time.

Darla put her head on my chest.

“Buttercup,” I called. Instantly, the tiny banshee appeared before me, her face somber, her dolls hanging still at her side.

I pushed Buttercup into Darla’s arms. “Tend the child,” I said. Darla looked up at me, hurt.

He must pretend to be falling under the huldra’s influence, said Stitches. It must seem real.

Darla pulled away.

I thought back to the times I’d actually held a huldra, to the power I’d felt rushing through my soul.

“I shall make me a manikin of this Elf’s skin and bones,” I said aloud. “I shall take a bite of his heart before it is stilled.”

Mama caught up to Gertriss and had no more luck than the vampires. Gertriss joined the expanding ring of dancers, spinning in slow circles to Lady Rondalee’s nameless song.

Angels above, bear me down this here river,

Bear me safe over snag and shoal,

Angels above, from heartache deliver,

Angels bear me safe and Angels spare my soul

Mama let go of Gertriss and screamed as she danced away.

Chapter Fourteen

It took five halfdead to wrestle Evis away from Gertriss.

One of them wound up with a broken arm. Evis had a swollen nose and a black right eye. I don’t think he felt either injury.

Mama wasn’t faring much better. She’d gone after the music box again, this time favoring a rifle she’d snatched from the floor. Mama had no idea how to fire it but she put the butt to good use, smashing away at the music box until the stock broke. She then proceeded to use the steel barrel as a club. Neither of the tiny mechanical dancers suffered in the least.

In the end, Mama exhausted herself and returned to her pile of herbs, where she burst into great hooting sobs of crying.

Buttercup dashed to her side, hugging her wordlessly, rocking with her until she fell silent. All the while, the banshee looked up at me expectantly.

I stirred the damned useless stew-pot and seethed.

The ranks of skeletons waiting for the barrier to fall now numbered eighteen deep. Evis absently ordered his men to cut them down. They did, this time with assistance from the rotating rapid-fire horrors that shot out through the shield earlier. Spent cartridges rolled across the casino floor. Bone-men fell. More rattled up to take their places.

“Sixty-two,” whispered Darla, not looking at me. “Dancers, that is.”

Fourteen dance in their locked rooms, added Stitches.

“That is not entirely helpful,” I noted. I rose. Huldra or no, Elf or no, I’d had enough sitting there stirring the world’s worst soup while my junior partner danced to a cursed trinket’s tune and my best friend died a second time from sheer grief.

Darla’s breath caught in her chest and she moved away from me. I looked around, saw Buttercup running, laying the rope I’d finally untangled out in a circle around us.

It was a game Mama had taught her when we first took Buttercup in. Run and lay string on the floor, in this door and out another. We’d reel it in, her screeching and giggling, until we caught her up in a hug.

Hey, it kept her from jumping through walls.

“Buttercup!” I bellowed. “Stop that.”

The banshee laughed and scampered on. I caught up the end of the rope and tugged, halting Buttercup long enough for Darla to scoop her up.

“Honey,” said Darla, her eyes wary as I gathered up the banshee-hair rope. “What are you planning to do?”

“I’m calling off the dance.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for Stitches to try and get the Regent’s lady friend to help?”

“I’m tired of waiting for the Regent to pry himself away from his game of whist. I’m going to see if I can tie this rope around the music box and pull it close to the shadow. We’ll see how the bone-men like dancing. Evis, will you keep everyone back?”

He just nodded.

I stomped away while Darla had her hands full. Mama looked up as I passed.

“It ain’t a half-bad idea, boy,” she said. “You ought to let me do it, though. I’m protected from all manner of hex-craft.”

“Not this time, Mama, but thanks for the offer.”

The halfdead parted to let me through, and I zigged and zagged between sweat-soaked dancers. Gertriss saw me as she passed, and her eyes went instantly wide, though she could not bring herself to speak. The Lady Rondalee kept singing, her voice showing no signs of strain.

Gertriss spun away.

“If you’ve got any river magic to spare, I’m about to need it,” I shouted to the stage.

The Lady smiled and started a new song.

Mean ol’ love, she broke my heart,

though I was always true,

Mean ol’ love, she broke my heart,

and now she’s comin’ for you…

I kicked a chair out of my way and put a small loop in the end of the rope. My intention was to slide the rope over and around the music box and hope some magical quality in Buttercup’s banshee hair would allow the rope to take hold. Then I’d drag the damned thing close enough to chuck it as far back in the shadow-realm as I could throw.

The miniature dancers circled the lid, bowing and spinning. I could barely hear the tinkling of the music box as it played.

“This isn’t your world,” I said, holding the rope just above the box and adjusting the diameter of the loop. “You don’t belong here and these people don’t belong to you. Now let go, damn you.”

I dropped the rope and yanked it tight.

Damned if the box didn’t jerk halfway off the table.

I pulled. The box moved. Its apparent weight was far in excess of what it should have been, as though it were twice its size and full of lead, but it moved.

The halfdead scattered about me and began to shout. I turned and barely dodged a blow from a man dressed in the male toy dancer’s elaborate costume.

A trio of shots rang out. Puffs of lace and velvet blew off the man’s waistcoat. Another fusillade of rifle fire sounded, bullets whizzing a hand’s breadth from my face, and I managed to step away from a slashing blade just as the female dancer, now full-size and furious, charged at my back.

If she was struck, she didn’t show it. Neither did her partner, who also failed to bleed or fall.

Halfdead flew past, converging on the dancers, swords flashing, rifle butts rising and falling. Both dancers went down flailing, but down they went.

More halfdead arrived. The dancers never made a sound. As they lost clothes to the struggle I saw complicated metal workings appear-gears and cogs and levers turning uselessly against the ferocity of two dozen determined halfdead.

I gave the rope a mighty heave and the music box, still playing, crashed to the deck.

The tiny dancers still danced, although the automatons lay smashed and still on the floor.

I heaved and struggled. The box slid across the carpet, leaving gashes in its wake. The thin rope cut into my palms, and I marveled at its strength.

Evis appeared at my side, took hold of the banshee-hair rope, and dragged the cursed box easily. I matched his pace until we reached the ranks of grinning skeletons, who clacked their dry teeth and smacked their long swords against their hip-bones in greeting.

“Cut them down,” shouted Evis. He smiled for the first time all night. “Cut them down and keep firing. We’re going in.”

The guns erupted with smoke and thunder. Halfdead closed ranks around us, adding rifle fire to the noise. Darla came to my side and emptied her gun into the dark.

The last of the bone-men fell.

Stitches strode up, hood thrown back, her ruined eyes aimed right at the shadow. She produced a handful of what looked like dust and pitched it out over the shattered heaps of bones.

Nothing happened, but she seemed to be waiting. A pair of fresh skeletons stepped out of the shadow and were brought down before they took another step.

Evis bent, took the music box in both hands, and lifted it.

I’d never seen a halfdead strain with exertion before. Evis clenched his jaw and his lips curled back and I could hear vampire joints popping and creaking against the effort.

But he picked the thing up, and held it aloft, and took a pair of steps forward.

Bones crunched beneath his boots. I followed, Toadsticker at the ready.

Hurry, said Stitches. They are massing beyond the dark.

“Dance, you bastards,” growled Evis. He bent his knees and bunched and threw the box forward right into the heart of the shadow.

The shadow exploded, bursting with harsh white light.

In that instant, I saw through the shadow and the Queen’s hull. Saw through to somewhere else-somewhere blasted and ruined and savaged. Nightmares roamed there, by the tens of thousands, by the hundreds of thousands. The ranks of the bone-men were the least of them.

Before the intensity of the light blinded me, I saw great vast, oily bulks writhing and shuffling, all making their way toward us. Some crawled. Some walked on legs that towered up far and away into the sky. Some oozed and slithered and rolled.

But all were bearing down on us, waiting for the darkness to take root and admit them.

I reached out, grabbed what I hoped was Evis, and yanked him back. I heard Darla shouting as from a great distance. Something out in the dark bellowed and something answered with a roar, and then hands fell upon me and hauled me out of the shadow.

I blinked, stumbling, bones crunching with every step. Darla was shouting at me, but my ears were ringing and I couldn’t make out her words.

Someone pushed a chair under me. I sat, rubbing my eyes, waiting for the bell in my ears to stop its damned pealing.

When I could see faces through the after-images left by the light, I knew we’d failed.

Darla was fighting back tears. Mama was muttering cuss words and laying into her blunted cleaver with a whetstone. Evis sat, head bowed, unmoving.

I could just make out the shapes of the ensorcelled dancers, still spinning and bowing. One went limp as I watched, but could not fall. Instead his body bumped and swayed, as though held upright by a rope around his neck.

“Maybe it just takes time,” I said, barely able to hear my own words.

You may have had some effect. The number of constructs emerging is reduced. The rate of expansion is slowed.

I glanced that way. Ranks of bone-men grinned back. If their numbers were reduced I couldn’t see it.

Evis raised his face.

“You have a huldra,” he said to me. “Why didn’t you use it?”

“Evis. You know I can’t control it.”

His face fell.

“It isn’t real, is it? Damn you, Markhat. That was our only hope.”

“We’re not done yet.” I looked around. No one but Darla and Mama and Stitches was close enough to hear. “Not yet.”

He had no reply.

“Stitches. Did you see anything in the shadow that might help?”

I believe it was a vast cavern, location unknown. Probably under the control of Hag Mary. A number of those creatures were quite ancient.

“Fascinating. Evis, how much ammunition do we have for those rapid-firing guns?”

But Evis was gone, vampire-quick and vampire-quiet.

He was halfway to the dancers before any of us could even stand.

I shouted. The halfdead ringing the dancers looked my way, but Evis waved them aside. I ran, knowing I’d never catch up.

They let me through. I found Evis sprinting beside Gertriss, the banshee-hair rope in his hands.

I backed off.

“Good idea,” I said. Evis nodded, put himself in front of her, and tossed a loop of rope around her.

She danced on, unslowed.

Evis let the rope drop from his hands. I caught up with him and stood beside him as we watched her go.

The first dancer to die flopped past. All the dancers were drooping. Lady Rondalee’s voice was hoarse and beginning to falter.

“You have the key,” said Evis. “Take Mama and Darla and Buttercup. There’s room for Stitches too, if you can convince her to go.”

“We’re not dead yet.”

“I am. I’ve been dead for years. I was just beginning to live again. Now I’ve got no reason. Fare thee well, Markhat. We had some good times, didn’t we?”

And before I could stop him, he darted away.

Before I could take even a pair of useless steps, he’d found Gertriss.

Before I could shout, he put his hands in hers and fell into step with her.

His dead white eyes didn’t glaze, didn’t close, but I saw them lose their focus.

And then they danced away.

Mama snuffled and mopped at her face. I hadn’t seen her come up.

“Reckon I might have been wrong about that one,” she said, gathering up her useless rope. “Might be a heart left in there after all.”

Gertriss rested her head on his shoulder.

“He give up, boy. You an’ me, we ain’t got that luxury.”

“He didn’t give up, Mama.” I looked away. “He chose how he wanted to die.”

“Same damned thing. Now unless you are figurin’ on takin’ up dancin’, we still got people on this boat. You comin’?”

I followed. There didn’t seem to be anything else left to do.

Darla and Stitches met us, Darla with hugs and Stitches with a cursory nod from behind her makeshift tower of bubbling vessels and sparking rods.

I am nearly done.

Darla let go of me reluctantly. I took a deep breath.

“Right. Mama, get ready to shake your birds. Stitches, I’m going to hold the huldra in one hand and Toadsticker in the other, and when I give you the sign, we light this thing up. Shortly after that we’ll know who’s Elf and who is not. Got it?”

Understood.

Buttercup scampered past, laying down her rope in a circle around us. Mama was busy tending her flock of dead birds. Darla was reloading. Stitches was putting the finishing touches on a complex device we both knew was a fraud and a lie.

“Not the time for games, honey,” I said. “Come back here.”

Buttercup giggled and scampered off.

Dutson appeared, a tray laden with beer bottles in his hand. I’d caught a glimpse of him in the fray with the construct dancers. He was bleeding from a cut on his forehead and his dinner jacket was torn, but his bearing suggested we were all merely enjoying another fine meal on another fine evening.

He nodded at me and gave me his customary ghost of a smile.

And then he stepped over Buttercup’s rope.

It wasn’t much. Just a shimmer, if you will. The barest flickering, the hint of a blur, as though Dutson stepped in front of hot air rising over a road. His features distorted-for a fraction of a heartbeat-showing as something with the basic shape and features of a man in late middle age that wasn’t a man at all.

Buttercup appeared at my side, slipped her tiny hand in mine, and began to howl.

Dutson dropped his tray. I brought my gun to bear. Buttercup’s howl rose up and filled the Queen, and before Dutson could move, Buttercup raised her free hand, pointing at him.

I fired. I didn’t miss. He turned and fled. I stuck Buttercup’s hand in Darla’s and charged after the Elf.

I caught a glimpse of Mama leaping to her feet, cleaver in hand. Rifles cracked, though who or what they were shooting at I couldn’t tell.

Buttercup’s banshee howl redoubled in volume. Glass began to shatter-here and there, beside and above. A tinkling rain of shards fell.

I caught a glimpse of Dutson’s white collar and made for him, yelling for help as I went. I didn’t look back to see if any of Evis’s people were on my heels.

The swinging doors to the kitchens still swung, as though someone just pushed through them. I put my back to the wall and pushed the right door open with Toadsticker.

Something struck the door hard enough to send it flying from its hinges. I stuck my gun inside and fired blind-twice-and entered the kitchen in a crouch.

Iron skillets swayed on their hooks. A forgotten pot boiled over on a stove. I heard the crackle and hiss of a cook-stove fire.

“There’s not another door,” I said. I held my gun steady. I was out of rounds, but I doubted ancient Elves were versed enough in gun craft to know that.

“By now two dozen halfdead are out there waiting,” I said. “It’s over. You’re not walking out of here. Maybe we can make you a better deal than Hag Mary.”

And there he was, appearing out of thin air, just like Buttercup.

“You are not worthy to speak her name,” he said. Gone was Dutson’s calm visage. His face was twisted with rage, twisted so far beyond human it was a caricature-eyes huge and bugged, brows pulsing, jaw protruding, and teeth growing as I watched. “The Wise One alone is fit to rule! Soon all will bow to her, and acknowledge her power and beauty! “

“Sure, but can she cook?”

Teeth became tusks. Hands became claws. It screamed and leaped, teeth dripping something thick and yellow.

I sidestepped, hurled the boiling pot of chicken stock into its face.

It didn’t blink. It didn’t scream. It wiped its face and grinned and began shifting its weight from foot to foot.

“You said I’d not walk out. But I will. As Markhat.”

“You won’t fool anyone. I’m told I am unique.”

“And your friends-where are they, hmmm? Why haven’t they come in to join us?”

“I told them to stay back,” I lied. “I don’t need any help putting down a wood sprite like you.”

“They can’t get inside,” it said. “I have magic. Magic more powerful than anything you know. I’ll put on your skin and bathe myself in glamour and I’ll go out there and I’ll kill her first, you know. Right before I lean close, and whisper in her ear, and tell her I don’t love her anymore.”

I laid down my empty gun and put both hands on Toadsticker’s hilt.

“You don’t have to be her tool,” I said. “Hag Mary. Wise One. Whatever you want to call her. You think she won’t throw you away when she’s done? That’s how those people work. You know it.”

“I’ll gut your Darla like a fish. Show Darla her liver before she dies. Take a bite out of it before her eyes close.”

“Going to be hard to do without a head.”

It gave up all pretense of being human and rushed me, snarling and flailing.

I buried Toadsticker deep in its chest, meeting no more resistance than if I’d pierced a bag of feathers. I twisted the blade and the Elf laughed and picked me up and threw me across the kitchen. Then it snatched Toadsticker free and tossed the sword aside.

“She’ll die in agony, betrayed,” it said, its words rendered nearly unintelligible as they passed through a throat and lips no longer human. The Elf’s skin split and hung in great ragged strips. Greens and browns-vines and shoots, I realized-moved beneath.

I found my Army knife, plunged it into its right eye as it grabbed me by the chest. Something like sap spurted out. The Elf laughed.

“Time to die, mortal man,” it said. “I won’t even need your ears for the rest of the spell. I can kill them all, one by one. They trust you. Killing them will be so easy.”

My hand closed over the false huldra. I brought it forth and shoved it in the Elf’s misshapen face.

It laughed again, a merry tinkle that sounded of chimes and crystal.

“It’s not even a terribly convincing fake,” said the Elf. “Your blind little sorceress has none of the skill my Blessed Mistress shows.”

I cussed. Dutson, ever present, always there and handy with a beer and a snack. Always lurking close, unfailingly attentive, always ignored-Elf ears wide open and listening, catching every unguarded whisper.

The Elf’s mouth opened and filled with black thorns as long as knives. “Eat it anyway,” I said, and when it roared I shoved the false huldra right down his damned throat.

The false huldra erupted in flames in my grasp. Fire shot between my fingers and rolled down my forearm and roared into the Elf, and while the flames didn’t burn me, they blazed through him like flaming oil dumped on kindling.

The Elf flapped and flopped and flailed, limbs thrashing against me, drumming on the walls, beating hard against the floor. The Elf pulled and strained and heaved, but some force beyond either of us kept us locked in place while the furious flames did their work.

It burned, did the Elf. Burned hot and bright. The smoke from it was sweet, as though from some rare and treasured tree.

Ashes fell from inside it. Its movements slowed. Vines began to unravel from within him, trailing embers and smoke.

In a moment, it was over, and the remains of the Elf-the last Elf, for all I knew-fell smoking to the Queen’s kitchen floor.

Instantly, Buttercup’s banshee howl sounded again. Shouts rose up, and a bevy of wary halfdead charged in, weapons drawn, eyeing me with an unhealthy amount of suspicion.

I lowered my hand. It was empty, save for a handful of ashes and a few steaming drops of black wax.

“It’s me, gents. Captain Markhat.” I said, adding a hint of emphasis to the word ‘Captain.’ “We had a spy aboard. Now we don’t. How are things outside?”

Their weapons didn’t waver. Mama Hog forced her way through them and without a word tossed a loop of Buttercup’s stringy rope around my neck.

Buttercup’s howl ceased and she was suddenly there with me, arms wrapped around my knees.

“Let her in,” bellowed Mama. “It’s him.”

They parted for Darla, and we all hugged while Mama kicked at the Elf’s remains with the toe of her boot.

“I knowed it all along,” she muttered. “Ain’t nothin’ to ‘em but a handful of weeds.”

Stitches made her way inside. The rotary guns are too hot to fire, she said to the Avalante soldiers. Go. The constructs are massing.

The soldiers went.

I leaned against the cabinets. My side was beginning to ache where I’d struck the wall. I had bruised ribs, if not broken ones.

“Stitches.” Talking didn’t hurt, but pulling in the breath to speak above the din of gunfire did. “How long until you absolutely have to drop the shield?”

Two hours. At that point, if the shield remains, we will effectively be engulfed in the shadow realm.

“Is that two hours plus or minus, or precisely two hours?”

Precisely two hours.

Darla, always angelic, found an icebox and wrapped a good big scoop of ice in a burlap flour sack, which she pressed gently to my side.

“You think the Elf was communicating with the outside?”

It seems likely.

“So they’d know we have two hours before we make ourselves vulnerable. I assume we’re still heading south at what…twenty knots, figuring the current?”

I have no contact with the wheelhouse or the engine room. But yes, we are still underway, at speed.

“I’ve got two ideas. You’re going to hate both of them.”

The gunfire outside wasn’t slowing. Shouts for more ammunition and more rifles sounded. I couldn’t see out the kitchen door, but it seemed the bone-men were massing for a charge.

“First, we take the rotary guns and as much ammunition as we can carry, and we march right into the shadow. They’re not expecting that.”

Suicide. Sheer suicide. Even my limited exploration of that place revealed it to be populated by creatures against which the guns would have little or no effect.

“She’s right about that, boy. I got a glimpse myself. Ain’t got words for what I seen. We could each charge in with a handful of cannon and still end up stomped flat.”

“I told you you’d hate it.”

I do indeed.

“Then we’re left with an easy choice,” I said. “We hand everyone a gun and we line the outer decks and we drop the shield. That will close the door to the shadow realm, will it not?”

I believe so. It will also render us immediately vulnerable to Hag Mary and her allies, who we know to be waiting in ambush.

“If they’re planning an ambush, they’ll be massing their main forces right at the spot they think we’ll be when the Queen’s shields fail. If you say we could hold out another two hours, and if we’re doing twenty knots, that might put them forty miles away.”

You realize this will be an arcane assault, and forty miles may make little difference to its execution.

“I know that. We might buy a few minutes, no more. We might be able to make for the riverbank, and we might get some of these people to safety. You have a better idea? Anyone?”

I shall need a moment to coordinate with the Regent.

“I don’t.” I was about to add a treasonous comment upon the Regent’s lack of involvement in the saving of his own hash when a pair of halfdead floated into the room and whispered to Stitches.

She dismissed them with a wave.

I shall see to the containment of the constructs while you coordinate the evacuation to the outer decks, she said.

“What about your word with the Regent?”

The Regent and his staff are gone. Vanished. Presumably via arcane means beyond detection by my skills or those of his adversaries.

Her voice maintained its careful neutrality, but the sutures in her lips beaded with tiny droplets of blood and she involuntarily clenched her jaw.

“Too bad. I was going to thank his girlfriend for adding her poison to the huldra. Or was that your magic that set him on fire?”

I have no such magic. She lowered her hood to hide her face. I wish you good fortune, Markhat.

“You should go with Darla and Mama,” I said. I showed her the key Evis had given me, to the false boiler and a hiding place. “You sure as hell don’t owe the Regent any loyalty. Not now.”

Stitches turned and walked away.

“I’m not hiding in any steel bowl,” said Darla.

“Me neither,” said Mama, loosing another savage kick at the smoldering remains of the Elf. “Might take me one of them fancy guns, though. I aims to do some harm.”

Buttercup looked up at me and grinned.

“Hell with it then,” I said. “Mama, I’ll get you a rifle. Buttercup too, maybe even a brace of cannon.”

Mama cussed and grabbed the little banshee and hauled her out of the kitchen. Darla and I kissed, checked our pistols, cleaned chicken broth off Toadsticker’s noble steel, and set about arming the survivors and warning them not to fire too soon or at each other.

Chapter Fifteen

The bone-men stood in clacking rows halfway to the stage.

Stitches fussed with the rotary guns, banging away at some brass mechanism with a hammer in a most unsorcerous fashion. A hundred halfdead ringed the advancing line of skeletons, rifles ready. Behind the riflemen stood more halfdead, each holding a fresh weapon and kneeling by a crate of ammunition.

The bone-men advanced another step, coming even with a chalk line inscribed on the floor.

The riflemen fired, working their bolts until their weapons were empty. Then they dropped them, grabbed the fresh ones handed to them by their reloaders, and started firing anew.

The bone-men fell in scores. The smoke from the rifles filled the ruined casino with a thick and choking fog. Lady Rondalee still held the stage, her voice a dry croak, but her words still sounding.

I counted a dozen dancers limp and pale, still moving though dead or nearly so. Evis and Gertriss still held their heads upright, still showed signs of life in their movements.

“What about them?” said Darla, tearing her eyes away from Gertriss and Evis.

“When the shadow gate closes, the music box will be inside. They’ll stop dancing. You’ll see.”

“You’re makin’ that up, boy. Though it does make a kind of sense.”

“With any luck, as soon as we close the shadow, the music box will start making those damned things in the shadow dance.” I had a brief vision of the monstrous, shambling hulks I’d seen in that place, locked forever in some clumsy round of pirouettes twenty stories tall.

That’s what you get for hurting my friends, I thought. Dance ’til Doomsday, you bastards.

Mama stomped hard on my foot.

“What the hell was that for?”

“Sorry, boy, you got a funny look all the sudden. All glazed over like. Thought you was about to start dancing with them others.”

“Smoke got in my eyes. Save it for Hag Mary, Mama.”

Another wave of skeletons poured out of the gap in the Queen’s hull. This time, though, something came with them.

I used to fish the Brown, like every other poor kid in the city. We’d sneak into the big lumber yards and dig at the edges of the mountains of sawdust. There we’d find enormous, fat nightcrawler worms, perfect for catching Brown River catfish.

This was like those nightcrawler worms, only as big around as I was tall. It glistened, and its segmented, oily body heaved and pulsed. It knocked bone-men aside and ground them into splinters as it struggled to push its bulk toward us.

Stitches gave the rotary gun a final savage blow and brought it to bear, cranking it with her pale, thin arm. It erupted in gunfire, and the rounds slammed full into the eyeless face of the worm.

The worm raised up, its end splitting into a wet opening lined with spikes. It howled as the rounds sank in. Thin, black blood spewed with each impact. It made a deep, gurgling roar and surged forward, rising higher, towering above Stitches.

A halfdead leaped to the other gun and began cranking and firing. He stitched a line of wounds across its neck. Black blood splashed and flew, but the creature kept coming.

Stitches backed away from her gun. A halfdead leaped to her place. She lifted her hands, filled them with light, and hurled an infant sun toward the worm.

The Queen shook, her deck heaving as the thing slammed its bulk down and then-flames coursing from its maw-it began to flail wildly about, striking the deck again, the ceiling, the walls. The guns followed it as best they could, sending wood chips flying and probably carving fist-sized holes in the deck and the hull.

Skeletons swarmed about, nearly lost in the smoke and the dark. All but one of the massive hanging lights were extinguished by the worm’s death throes, leaving us all half-blind.

A grinning skeleton gave itself away by clacking its teeth. I shattered its skull with a wild shot, and saw other, furtive scurryings in the smoke.

“Stitches, it’s time!” I yelled. Darla took down another bone-man a few yards away. Mama threw a chair at a pair of bony knees and brought her boot down on its skull when it fell. The bone-men managed to send at least a dozen of their fellows past the last chalk line.

Stitches climbed atop a felt-covered card table. Halfdead gathered in a ring around her, swords and rifles at the ready.

Stitches raised her glass staff, and a blinding spark of light grew within it.

“Mama, keep a hand on Buttercup. Darla, stay close. Let’s go.”

I led them out through the doors. Out of the choking gun-smoke and the stink of the worm thing’s dark blood. Out onto the Queen’s porched decks, where lines of nervous faces kept watch on the dark.

“Be ready, people,” I shouted. “Don’t be in a hurry. Don’t shoot your neighbors. Don’t jump in the river unless you can swim.”

All was quiet for a moment. Muddy water rushed past. Above, there was moonless night, the usual stars, a distant river-bank lined with the tall, black boughs of deep forest.

Mama rested the barrel of her rifle on the rail. “Boy, how do I shoot this contraption, again? Pull this?”

Before I could warn her, she tugged at the trigger, and the rifle jumped and barked.

Night gave way briefly to day. The primal father of all thunder cracked the sky and sounded across the river.

“Damn, boy,” said Mama in hushed tones of awe.

Half a dozen other shots rang out. I cussed and yelled for them to cease firing, all the while blinking and straining to see beyond the rail.

The brief flash had rendered us all half-blind. I finally got them to stop firing about the time I could see again.

The river hadn’t changed. Neither had the sky or the trees.

A ragged cheer rose up. Shouts began to sound from below decks. A door opened, and a pair of Ogres poured out, clubs held at the ready, hooting questions none of us could answer.

The Queen shuddered. Her wheel picked up speed and her rudders bit hard. We turned to port, which I prayed was the closest patch of dry, solid ground.

Stitches emerged from the Queen’s interior. Gunshots still rang out from within, though they were rifle shots-not the thunder of the rotary guns.

We melted the barrels, she said. Some number rushed through. But the shadow is gone.

“Evis and the rest?”

No change. Yet. But take heart. The residual effects…

She just stopped talking. She threw back her hood and pointed toward the horizon.

Figures walked there, dark silhouettes like the trees, but moving and towering above them.

There was a man, in old-style armor, with horns on his helmet.

There was a tall, thin man bearing a staff.

Between them was a crone, hunched and bent, her hair as wild as Mama’s, her nails grown long and twisted.

“Damn damn damn,” said Mama. She wrestled with her gun, managed to jam it by pulling back the bolt without firing first. “I can’t swim, boy. But I reckon I might try anyways.”

The dark giants walked. Trees snapped and broke beneath their feet. Flocks of panicked birds rose up, wheeling away against the starry sky.

“Hag Mary and friends?”

The sorcerer is Daroth. The warrior was called Hurlt. I suspected Daroth, but thought Hurlt diminished.

“I don’t suppose they’ll agree to give us a two-hour head start?”

They reached the riverbank. I guessed we must have been a mile away, but they took up half the sky.

More gunfire sounded from within. A rotary gun fired, blazing away, either through a melted barrel or a fresh one. Men shouted. Ogres roared. A battle raged behind the casino doors, and I realized any of the monsters looking down upon the Queen could end it all, end us all, with a single godlike tread.

A voice sounded from the sky. I could not make out the words, though I could feel them rattle my chest.

“I’ve always loved you,” said Darla, slipping her arm around my waist.

“No one can blame you for that.”

Stitches spoke, shouting wordlessly across the waters.

Your vocal cords are several yards long, at your chosen stature, she said. I cannot understand your speech. Please repeat your demands.

Idiots, she added, in a whisper I was sure only Darla and I could hear.

Another flash of daylight. This time I managed to close my eyes in time. When I opened them again, Hag Mary and her strolling companions were reduced in size to a mere hundred feet, knee-deep in the muddy Brown River maybe fifty yards away.

“Give unto us this upstart you name the Regent,” said the armored giant.

“We will grant thee the boon of a swift death,” added the robed wizard.

“Give him to me,” screeched Hag Mary. Her eyes glinted like dirty stars beneath her mane of hair. Gobs of foul-smelling spittle fell like sleet as she spoke. “I will have him!”

Stitches put her elbows on the rail.

Do you even understand what it is your masters wish to bring about?

“I hath no master,” bellowed the warrior.

“Nor I,” said the wizard.

Hag Mary spat, raising a splash that nearly reached the Queen.

Darla poked me, raised a finger to her lips, pointed at the sky above the Hag and the wizard and the warrior.

A star grew brighter as I watched, and brighter still. It grew larger as well.

I understand, continued Stitches. I remember the last time your masters walked the earth. I remember their cruelty, their violent whims, their mindless caprice. I remember. And I tell you, I will not have it. Not again.

The star went from the size of a coin to that of an apple. It grew so bright the Hag and her companions began to cast faint shadows.

“Tear the vessel apart!” screamed the Hag, striding forward, waves breaking about her thighs. “Find him!”

They advanced. Stitches rose.

She turned to me and smiled a bloody little smile.

All those long years digging, she said, soundless voice booming. Digging ever deeper, scrambling for trinkets, for things best left buried.

Hag Mary was nearly upon us, growing taller than the Brass Bell tower, or the tallest spire at Wherthmore. Her arms were outstretched, and I could see her hands were filthy by the light of the growing star.

A faint roar rose, and the line of trees began to lean, blown over by a sudden growing wind.

Stitches shook her head.

All that time digging, Hag. You would have been better served had you looked up. Astronomy, bitch.

Have some.

Stitches raised her glass staff. Hag Mary howled and grabbed at us, but her nails scratched uselessly against a transparent bubble.

The light grew bright as day. I saw the warrior and the wizard turn, saw the Hag tower up against a blinding new sun-

— and then the bubble turned inky black and rang like a bell.

The Queen’s deck pitched forward, and we all went spilling down into the night.

Chapter Sixteen

According to Stitches, the sky is full of stones.

I pondered that often in the days that followed. There wasn’t much to do but ponder. The Queen, more or less intact, rested on dry, scorched earth at the bottom of a pit we determined to be two hundred and six feet deep and nearly two miles across.

That’s what happens when one of these sky-stones falls to earth, says Stitches. The impact is so great the very land is changed.

I know this to be true. I sacrificed my best pair of boots climbing the shallow grade of the pit. A dozen of us made the trip and peeked over the smoking rim to view the devastation beyond.

All about us, the trees were laid flat, their trunks radiating out from a point in the heart of the pit. The soil lay bare and baked. The Brown River was gone, and the sky was an angry red, still choked with the ash from a thousand small fires.

We searched, we did, for the remains of Hag Mary and her companions. We found nothing. Stitches assures me nothing unprepared for such a force could possibly have survived.

As I sit on the deck of a boat in sudden want of a river and watch steam rise from fissures all about me, I am inclined to believe her.

These stones in the heavens, said Stitches, float in great slow circles. She’d captured one, years ago, and started drawing it ever closer, keeping it ready for the time she would need a single irresistible blow.

Even Hag Mary’s legendary might hadn’t been enough to save her. Stitches claims we survived only by the narrowest of margins.

The Queen’s smoke-stacks would agree. One is a melted, slumping lump. The other was cut off clean at the top by Stitches’s final spell.

It took two full days for the Brown to begin to flow again, coursing down the north side of our pit first in a trickle and then in a stream. The heat from the blasted ground turned the trickle to steam at first, but soon the water reached the bottom and our hole became a shallow but deepening lake. It took ten days, but the Queen rose with the water, and we knew we would soon be able to turn her battered face north and steam for home.

Before the waters rose, we dug twenty-eight graves, out there at the bottom of what was soon a lake.

Evis and Gertriss and the rest of the dancers were freed the moment the sky-stone struck. Evis is credited with turning the tide of battle in the casino. At one point he apparently wielded both rotary guns like pistols and charged a dragon. There’s a rumor the Ogres are writing a song about it.

Gertriss slept for two days with Mama and Evis hovering over her like fidgety nursemaids. Halfdead and soothsayer nearly came to blows more than once over the application of cold cloths to Gertriss’s forehead, but Darla believes that’s how they’ve decided to proceed with their newfound friendship.

Our current best guess at our position puts us some hundred and forty miles south of Rannit. Stitches claims the blast probably flattened every tree in a circle twenty-five miles across, and tore the hell out of an area twice that large.

All that, from a sky-stone she claims was not much bigger than my house.

Astronomy, she calls it.

I don’t think I want to know what else is circling me, far far above.

Gunfire left seventy-seven holes in the Queen’s hull. Patching them took three full days, even with a dozen Ogres pitching in.

The moment we were seaworthy, Evis ordered the casino restored and opened for business.

He declared all remaining foodstuffs and every drop of surviving liquor free for the duration of the voyage.

The party was in full swing by sundown.

Laughter and happy shouts sounded from inside. Gambling machines chimed and tinkled and rang. Cheers went up when someone won and roars sounded when they lost.

You appear to be deep in thought, said Stitches as she sat down in a deck chair beside me. She balanced a plate of biscuits and a two hot cups of tea on her lap. Care to share your ruminations?

“How are you going to eat that?”

She chuckled. I brought it for you. I thought Mrs. Markhat was here as well. She expressed a desire earlier today for simpler fare than the kitchen is serving, so I made these.

“You made them?” I reached for one out of politeness.

I find simple culinary tasks relaxing. She gazed with ruined eyes out across the shallow pond that was only now beginning to lap at the Queen’s patched hull. After my recent exertions, I am in need of considerable relaxation.

I took a cup of tea. It wasn’t bad-certainly nothing like the vile bitter brew Mama is so fond of. I took a bite of biscuit and washed it down.

“A couple of things don’t make sense,” I said.

Only a couple?

“I’ve narrowed the list in the interest of expediency. The fake huldra. It lit up that Elf like a fresh-oiled torch. You said it could barely pass as real, even from a distance.”

The Regent’s creature must have imbued it with something of considerable potency.

“Sure. Right. Had to be that.”

I took another bite of the biscuit, another drink of tea.

“So the conspiracy of the summer-born lost this round,” I said. “Lost in a big way.”

We were lucky.

“No.” I wiped my chin and put my tea down on the deck. “We weren’t lucky. This was all planned, right down to the last detail. The Regent led them out here, far away from Rannit, so he could skip back to the High House and you could drop the sky on them.”

I was unaware the Regent had the means to leave the Queen, but yes, your surmise is correct on the other points.

I nodded and laced my fingers behind the back of my head.

“It’s disheartening when old allies keep secrets from each other. Isn’t it, Corpsemaster?”

For a single horrible instant, I thought I’d finally fulfilled Mama’s long standing prophecy that my mouth would be the death of me.

But then she laughed.

Well done, Captain Markhat! Well done, indeed. Tell me-how did you deduce my identity?

“I’ve only tasted a biscuit this bad once before,” I said. “You’re adding too much salt.”

Undone by a rural pastry. How fitting.

Without any fuss or flash, Stitches was gone, and the weary older woman I’d seen only once before was seated in her place.

“So is the missus going to find herself a widow?”

“No. Of course not. I’ve grown rather fond of you, Captain. And by now I’m sure you’ve also surmised that Encorla Hisvin and her madness is no more me than Stitches and her sewn-shut eyes.”

“I thought as much.”

“The Corpsemaster has nearly served her purpose,” she said. “Stitches will rise as the Corpsemaster fades. And so forth, as needed. My peers fail to recognize the need to periodically re-invent themselves. They wear the same cloak of identity so long it drives them quite mad in the end.”

“All that about the world of the summer-born? That was all true?” I hesitated. “Just how old are you, Lady?”

“One never asks a lady her age, Captain. I shall not answer that, save to say I have on no other occasion enjoyed an evening aboard a boat in wait of a river.”

“That was a real huldra, wasn’t it?”

She sighed. “No. It was not. And the Regent’s creature played no role in its efficacy.” She sighed again. “You have earned the truth.”

My heart sank.

“I still carry it, don’t I? The one I crushed and burned. It’s still inside me, waiting.”

“It is more precise to say you are the huldra, Captain. That is why the Elf burned.”

“So why not just throw me at Hag Mary? Why all this?” I gestured out at the newborn lake, its waters still struggling to rise.

“The huldra is old, Captain Markhat. Older than I. It came down through many summers, many winters. I spent centuries trying to discern its true nature, unlock its secrets.”

“Find a way to tame it, you mean.”

She shrugged. “In essence. It defied my attempts. Remained capricious.”

“So you pushed it off on me. And then made sure I was handy when it came time to make use of it.”

“We would not have survived the impact of what you call the sky-stone without the huldra’s stored energies.” She waved her fingers at me and mouthed words I couldn’t hear. “If it is any consolation, for the first time since you took it up, I can detect no trace of the huldra within you now. I suspect confronting the impact destroyed it completely. You are free.”

“Mr. Simmons. He did spit in my eyes, didn’t he?”

She smiled. “Daroth was always fond of poisons. I merely took precautions against such.”

I looked out over the infant lake, wondered what it would look like in fifty years, in a hundred. There’d be boats, I decided. Boats and docks and tanned kids laughing on the shore and patient fishermen hunched over their lines.

“Was it true what you said, about the times when the summer-born critters walk? That the world is a waking nightmare?”

“Yes.”

I let out the breath I’d been saving. Maybe it was true, that we’d struck a blow against slumbering monsters. And maybe, if that was true, I could forgive the odd lie, or three.

“I think we should name it Victory Lake,” I said. “Before someone starts calling it Mud Bend or Reek Hole.”

“Victory Lake,” said the erstwhile Corpsemaster, whose name I realized I would probably never know. “I believe I like that. Very much indeed.”

Laughter and cheering sounded as the Queen’s casino doors flew open. Darla’s voice rang out, and she walked a tad unsteadily toward me, a pair of tall beer glasses in her hands.

Stitches, Stitches once more, rose.

Good evening, Darla, she said.

“Stitches! So good to see you up and about. Are you rested?”

I feel a thousand years younger. Perhaps more. She picked up her plate and teacups, and after a moment she cast them all over the rail. Good evening, you two. I believe I will go watch Mama Hog and Mr. Prestley pretend to despise each other.

Darla sat and watched her go.

“I hope I didn’t interrupt anything,” she said.

“Not at all.” I took a sip of beer and grinned. Darla had found the good stuff. Even the Dutson-imposter hadn’t cracked the best casks.

Poor Dutson. We’d found him in the false boiler Evis had given me the key to. Evis and I did the best we could, laying him to rest.

Darla tweaked my nose. “Uh uh,” she said, grinning. “No poignant reflecting tonight. We’re both here, both alive, and as soon as we have a lake under us we’re both heading home.”

The doors opened again. I heard Mama bellow Buttercup’s name, heard Evis and Gertriss laughing, heard footfalls on the deck heading our way.

I lifted my glass in a toast.

“Together, my dear. To the Queen’s maiden voyage. To victory over the forces of evil. And mainly to our thousand crown fee, forever may it wave.”

Darla raised her glass with mine. “Captain Markhat, I will always drink to that.”

Content

Frank Tuttle
Brown River Queen

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen