The Waking Engine Part 11

Purity blushed at the thought of his fingers, so deft at finding their way to places they oughtn't be. What was his name? She tried to recall. I'm terrible.

Of course she'd given him a false name, or else she'd have been kidnapped for ransom in a trice. Those cultists were disposable due to their mental defects, but they did acquire a few memorable talents on their way to torture and undeath.

She wrestled a few minutes longer with the praetor's helm. If she could pad the gap between her forehead and the helm, perhaps it would sit still and let her get on with burgling. She glanced about hopefully, but all she had in the way of padding was the dress on her back and the stockings on her feet.

Stockings it is, then.

Purity gritted her teeth and braced her back against the wall, trying to remove her stockings without upsetting the helm that sat atop her head. Gemmed citrine slippers came off easily enough, but Purity had to twist herself like an old drunk moving his bowels to tug off her stockings, and the flimsy things were still too insubstantial to be of much use, she thought, when at last she had them balled up in her hands. She pushed up the helm a few inches and held it there with one hand while she wound each stocking about her skull as best she could with the other-when she resettled the helm upon her brow it didn't cut into her scalp so badly, but it didn't seem much steadier, either. Purity sighed, and stalked toward a white oval door that blocked her path.

Beyond that door, carved from rare billionstone to resemble the branches of the Groveheart, lay the prince's personal suites. Only the prince and the Lords and Ladies Unsung were ever allowed inside-Purity had tried in vain to find a maid who'd tended the prince's apartments, but there seemed to be nary a soul within the Dome who'd ever stepped foot above the third floor of the Malaison. And here she stood on the sixth, with stockings wrapped around her ears and a looted praetorian helm wobbling atop her head.

Oh, oh, Purity you silly quim, what ever are you doing?

Well, that self-recrimination was easily answered: I'm fed up with this imprisonment, and if I can't escape the Dome, I'll d.a.m.n well know its secrets. She nodded to herself with authority, and the helm nearly caved in the bridge of her nose. She squeaked, then cringed.

To gather the nerve to open the door, Purity Kloo reminded herself that she had plenty of experience bending the rules. She recounted her past exploits by way of a mantra for courage, enumerating the reasons why she dared burgle the leader of the world-even if he had vanished. When, at ten, she'd found the secret doorway that led from Baron Kloo's study to his pleasure suite, her father had been more proud than cross. When she'd disguised herself as her brother Pomeroy for the all-male Midseason Tourneys and thrown Erasmus FenBey from his courser inside of fifteen seconds, her father had been concerned but not- so- secretly proud-and the Baroness had no choice but to swallow her humiliation and join in her husband's good-natured ribbing of Duke and Doctor FenBey while a mortified Doctor FenBey tended to her poor son Erasmus' shattered ribs. When, at the age of sixteen, Purity Kloo debuted before formal society, she had filled the entire Barony with pride at the sight of her dainty figure and spun- gold hair. But when she swept down the aisle leaning not on the arm of her brother but suspended between a pair of rough-cut gigolos-one supporting each kid-gloved wrist-the Barony had been mortified.

And then a few years ago she'd spent a week killing herself, of course, which was less rebellious than just plain odd. It hadn't worked, but Purity persisted for longer than anyone had expected-her brother lost his bet with their father- and she'd earned a bit of respect for herself in the process. The body-bound n.o.bility dismissed suicide as an extreme form of masochism but little else, and after slas.h.i.+ng her throat every half hour for seven days Purity had to agree: no exit lay in that direction.

So she didn't consider her actions the least bit out of character when she excused herself from another dozen hours of embroidery and dared to penetrate the Pet.i.te Malaison, a rather non-pet.i.te architectural confection of unimaginable age that sat at the crown of the Dome's largest open s.p.a.ce, the primordial Groveheart. From his seat here, in theory, the prince had watched the Dying wind their way into the remnant of Anvit's Glade, where ages ago the mortal Third People first found release from the wheel of lives.

Purity felt a kins.h.i.+p with the birds wheeling above the Groveheart, looking down on the tops of the oldoaks, redwoods and rustwoods that seemed to stand so straight and rise so tall from the forest floor. Only the ma.s.sive central column of gold metal, which supported the roof of the Dome, rose above the trees. From this high vantage the treetops reminded her of green thunderclouds, like the dark emerald c.u.muli that had showered her family in ethylene glycol the day her sister Parquetta had miscarried. Toxic rain for a toxic day.

Thinking of that time increased Purity's frustration at her predicament- the predicament of the entire n.o.bility, really, but Purity only charily thought of the other members of the peerage as her actual peers. They may be inbred fops, but she didn't think the n.o.bility had earned this punishment for their millennia of privilege: to have their lives restricted to this city, and then to madness and parlor games in a great gilded birdcage. Couture killings, the Circle Unsung devouring itself-perhaps literally-and a single cowardly Killer. Tears washed away by antifreeze while never-born babies withered on the sweet green dirt.

Something flapped its wings inside Purity's rib cage, something keen with the potential for brutality, and she welcomed the feeling even as she struggled to identify it. She'd tried to be a good girl, sewing and lunching and severing heads from the girls who were less good, or perhaps better- Purity admitted to herself that she'd lost a bit of perspective on that count. But five years! Five years of claustrophobic smiles and rote repet.i.tion of the same mindless activities day-in, day-out-she'd tried everything she could think of to escape, all to no avail. So it was only natural that the boredom of her confinement propelled her toward these forbidden heights. Boredom and stifled rage. She thought she knew an inkling of what the Dying must feel when they came here for release.

Suddenly a sound came from behind her, and the angry bird in Purity's chest nearly fainted from fright. She turned around so swiftly that the platinum helm fell off her head completely, landing with a bang and crus.h.i.+ng the toes of one foot.

"f.u.c.k a footman, that hurt!" she cried, hopping, only to lose all thought of her physical pain when two gawking faces peeked around the corner. Two identical faces, appearing vapid and surprised at the same time.

NiNi and NoNo Leibowitz looked at Purity, then turned their heads to look at each other, shrugged, and looked to Purity again. They slithered into the morning light.

"Oh, h.e.l.lo dears!" Purity squeaked, wiggling her fingers in a vain attempt at nonchalance. She stepped in front of the fallen helm, hoping the girls wouldn't see it. Matching sets of eyes blinked, looked to each other again, then returned to Purity.

"Did you get lost on your way to the seamstresses, too?" NiNi asked. She wore a silver tunic and leggings encrusted with bits of mirrored gla.s.s. NoNo seemed dressed more sensibly for this time of the morning, wrapped in white linen that matched the spotless walls of the Pet.i.te Malaison. For some reason she kept scrubbing her nose with her fingers as though she smelled something foul.

"Seamstresses?" Purity repeated, scrambling for excuses. "The seamstresses are on the first floor. Of another building entirely." NiNi was lugging a heavy-looking sack, no doubt filled with lovely clothes in need of minor, pointless alterations.

"So they are." NoNo nodded, still frowning at some stink Purity couldn't detect. "Which explains our trouble locating the workrooms. Whatever are you doing up here, Purity?"

"And why do you have your stockings wrapped around your head?" NiNi added.

"My head was cold," Purity answered before she could think.

"Oh, alright," NiNi said, "but what about your feet?"

"What about them, NiNi?" Purity's voice came out shrill; she moved on quickly. "I often enjoy watching the sunrise from a vantage with a little alt.i.tude." Nevermind how hard it was to actually see the sunrise past a forest and a wall of thick gla.s.s.

NoNo narrowed her eyes. "They say we aren't allowed up here. They say we ought not risk upsetting the praetors."

"They say," NiNi added in a stage whisper, trying to open wide her heavy-lidded eyes, "that there's a Killer on the loose!"

Purity tried so hard to force her voice into a trill of laughter that she almost sang an arpeggio. "Well, they also say that the world is a mermaid who sings the skies to sleep each night, so I don't rightly know what we're supposed to believe when it comes to they and saying, do I? But I tell you what, a little aerial promenade is an absolute tonic for the spirit, and that's my heartiest possible endors.e.m.e.nt, as I'm certain you two know. Isn't the view from up here just lovely? I think it so, I really do." Purity ran out of breath and gave silent thanks for it.

"Um. What?" NoNo c.o.c.ked her head and looked at Purity as if she'd gone batty.

"There are mermaids up here?" NiNi asked with the first bit of enthusiasm Purity had seen her show for weeks. "I want one!" She waved her arm in the air, in case the mermaid people were watching.

NoNo sighed, and for a moment Purity could almost believe she wasn't as empty-headed as her twin. "It's too early in the morning for mermaids, NiNi. They sleep late."

"Oh." NiNi sounded disappointed for a moment, but then yawned and tugged at her sack. "Can we find the building with the seamstresses now, NoNo? I want to go back to bed, like the mermaids, and you have your dance lessons."

NoNo takes lessons? Purity found the mental s.p.a.ce to marvel.

"Of course, let's." NoNo made no move. The twins looked at each other again, at a loss.

"You'll want to go downstairs," Purity instructed them, trying to keep her urgency from showing. "All the way to the ground floor. And then to the Maidens' Keep, you sillies, that's the other big white building facing the Groveheart. Perfectly understandable error, my darlings!" We live there, you clowns.

"Of course," NiNi nodded, taking NoNo's hand and turning away, "Let's!"

"Won't you show us the way?" NoNo asked Purity, the faintest hint of a pout coloring her expression.

"Oh I would, NoNo, you know that I absolutely would. But I love my sunrises so, you will forgive me for lingering here a few moments more, won't you? My favorite part is watching the sun-or suns-rise above the canopy of the Groveheart. Or, um, trying to. Sometimes that big central column supporting the Dome just gleams, I tell you. I'm always atwitter to see what flavor sky the world will grace us with; each day is such a delight! Don't you think? Thank you ever so much for your understanding, girls; I'm such a daft thing, aren't I, to be so moved by the dawn!"

NiNi laughed. "You sure are silly, Purity."

NoNo gave a little clap and agreed. "We'll find our way together, won't we, NiNi? And then you'll sleep a few more hours, while I nip off to dance a while. We will see you at Bitzy's breakfast, won't we?"

Purity threw up her hands in a pantomime of delight. "Why of course you will, NoNo! I wouldn't miss one of Bitzy's breakfasts for all the sunrises in all the worlds! And please do enjoy your dancing lesson!"

NoNo acceded, but spared a word of warning: "You watch out for that Killer, Purity Kloo."

"I will, I absolutely will do just that." Purity nodded fiercely. "And you two do precisely the same. I absolutely forbid anyone from Dying before breakfast!" She trilled a laugh again, this one more successfully lighthearted.

Purity tried not to grimace as the twins tottered away, NiNi dragging her laundry bag behind her. Bitzy designed her breakfasts to keep the girls' figures dainty, which meant that there was no breakfast allowed, only tea. An empty stomach was the least of Purity's problems.

Purity waited until she was certain that she was alone in the forbidden corridor. She'd come this far, and survived an unlikely encounter with the sisters Leibowitz, which lent her courage now that she thought about it-after all, if NiNi and NoNo could wander through the halls of the Pet.i.te Malaison unmolested, then she would have no problems. Although it did worry her that her stolen helm had opened the doors so thoroughly; the girls must not have been very far behind her, surely, or the doors would have sealed themselves shut again. Purity didn't know exactly how the helm interacted with the doorways of the Malaison, but the enchantment couldn't leave the doors unlocked for very long or it wouldn't be a very effective security system, would it?

The door to the prince's apartments opened like all the others: Purity, helm-on-head, raised her hand to the stone branches that decorated the round portal and a little bird, a lark of white billionstone, hopped up from within the carved foliage and nodded its head in her direction. The doors swung inward on silent hinges, and Purity stepped into a room that only the prince and the members of the Circle Unsung, like her father, had ever visited before.

s.h.i.+elding her face from the light, Purity had to admit that, vanished or not, Fflaen knew how to impress: he'd left the rooms within unadorned, allowing the astounding architecture to impress his visitors without the impediment of too much design. Here, the stonework was obviously much, much older than what she'd seen in the corridors of the Pet.i.te Malaison. Like the doorway, the stone itself was different-billionstone shone like the sun in the presence of the prince, but even without Fflaen it was bright enough to dazzle Purity's eyes.

As her vision adjusted, she saw that the once-exactingly-carved clerestories and crenellations of the blindingly white mineral were designed to withstand eternity and were doing so admirably; time had melted the billionstone like radiant wax, but the craftsmans.h.i.+p retained the soul of their artistry. Figures that might have been the original inhabitants of the city stared down from the walls like rows of eroded angels, their faces and fingers not so much weathered by age as liquescent, elongated. Eye sockets gaped, mouths hung open, fingers dripped into the shapes of long icicles. The filigreed billionstone above and below the carvings had undergone a similar transformation, and now it imprisoned the statues in a lace of wintery stone.

The ceiling itself dripped with age, dressing the molding in a ribbed palate of deformed stonework that transformed the suite into the maw of a snow-white behemoth. She half expected to see teeth r.i.m.m.i.n.g the floor, but of course there were none-the floors, for that matter, must have been replaced every few thousand years or so as a matter of practicality, simple white tiles that matched the mood of the architecture, scattered about with whorls of the only color visible: mosaic spirals of red, green, and blue. The trails of color made for an odd choice until Purity realized that only the guiding lines of mosaic gave the apartments any sense of scale-they were footpaths to be followed from room to room in the glow of billionstone. Thank goodness the floor tiles were more ordinary, or the radiance might have overwhelmed her; she shuddered to think how bright the walls would glow should the prince return.

Fflaen didn't need a throne, Purity thought, and realized that she had been half-expecting to see one. All he had to do was exist, and the billionstone spine of his palace would s.h.i.+ne like a sun. He wore his age and s.h.i.+ning inhuman skin as crown and mantle, and here in the Pet.i.te Malaison age itself presented itself as a separate ent.i.ty-no lord, no lady, no matter how many lives they might have lived, could face this reminder of the colossus of time unchastened. Lords and ladies come and go, the walls and their friezes announced, and in time even princes may pa.s.s away. But the City Unspoken remains. Long after the even the dust of your memory has faded, the City Unspoken remains.

Then she noticed something off.

When her father had visited these apartments, Purity wondered with a mixture of delight and trepidation, had he seen the hatch that opened beneath a rosette of inlaid stones-mostly malachite, lapis, and textured hemat.i.te? Three-quarters of the tiled circ.u.mference had collapsed to expose a flight of frosted gla.s.s steps leading down into a well of incandescent, ancient mineral.

The crisp modern lines of the cantilevered gla.s.s stairs stood out in contrast to the funnel of dripping billionstone through which she descended, and Purity realized she'd been distracting herself from her infiltration by musing on the design choices of her burgled surroundings. Of course she had, it was what they were taught to do, all the children of the ruling cla.s.s-to distract themselves from anything real with frippery. To flit about like moths between lamps, never resting too long upon one thought lest they spoil their fun with serious thought. I'm no better than Bitzy, Purity admonished herself, knowing as she did so that it wasn't true.

She followed the stairs down, and after a few turns they opened into a chamber the same size and luminosity as the greatroom above, but spangled with colored light. . . . Purity let out a squeak. She thought for a moment that she'd entered an art gallery-she stared at a row of varicolored gla.s.s panels, each piece taller than a man, suspended by high-tension wires from the ceiling and supported from beneath by st.u.r.dy calipers. The light radiating from the wall illuminated the preserved slabs of stained gla.s.s, casting projections of the images therein onto the white tiled floor.

Her mouth slack with wonder, Purity wandered between the panes of colored gla.s.s and realized what she witnessed-these were the Dawn Stains, artifacts of legend from the long-forgotten, half-mythic original seat of government, of a palace and a people that hadn't existed for over half a million years, save for remnants like Fflaen, who was the last of his people. Fflaen and the Dawn Stains. The histories Purity studied had referred to the vanished palace alternatively as Anvit's Lament and the Manifold Remnant, neither of which was anything but some historian's fancy, since even the ruins of the first palace had been lost since before memory. Yet here it was, or slices of it, held in place by steel calipers and taut wire.

Said to have lit the palace of the City Unspoken's first rulers-of which these billionstone walls were remnants-the gla.s.s windows called the Dawn Stains told the story of the city's founding. These were the First People who laid the first cornerstones of the city and cleared away the vastness of Anvit's Glade, the primordial forest that held the original deed to the land their city now occupied. The name of their race was aesr, and the name of their last descendent was Fflaen, her prince.

Purity stumbled from the weight of the age and majesty around her, catching herself against one of the priceless fragments of gla.s.s. In a moment, all her bravado seemed to evaporate. What had she done? What was she doing here? She was just a bored girl with a grudge, and she'd almost fallen through one of the tolling Dawn Stains, bells in their belfries!

The gla.s.s panes of the Dawn Stains had run together like honey over the eons, but the scenes depicted were still recognizable after an impressionist fas.h.i.+on-the largest showed a pair of gleaming white figures, brother/sister and husband/wife. A father with an eyeless, fin-crested face and a body that shone like a gold sun. A similar figure, female, placing a red crown on her own brow. A tortoise with a forest growing from its sh.e.l.l, swimming through a stylized sea. Brilliant lights danced up the side of each of the siblings, mirrored by rays of light from beneath their father's ribs.

Another fragment portrayed a group of women, blue- skinned and yellow-haired, bearing flowers the color of glacial ice. They bowed their heads at the foot of a great barrow-that would be Anvit's funeral, and his daughters the ice maidens from whence the neighboring Maidens' Keep earned its name. The lure of history overwrote Purity's shame, and soon she was stalking from pane to pane, committing every possible detail of the Dawn Stains to memory.

Further down Purity saw different images, each becoming successively more abstract-was that part of the Dawn Stains' design, or were the more abstract fragments older than the rest, more primitive in their devising and more heavily blurred by time? She saw a shape like a golden whale, pierced by holes or spears- she could not tell-in a similar pattern to the lights along the flanks of the figures from the largest stain. A pocket watch dangling over a muddy bowl. The unmistakable curve of a pregnant belly, bright red. Virgin forest; a shard of what looked like rock tied round with a red bow; an odd triangle colored pink and brown and turquoise, above seven setting suns; three turtles against a starlit sky; a row of fists; a b.l.o.o.d.y field of battle; a sad child. Bars of color comprising some patterned, rhythmic code that ran along the bottom of each pane. So much more than Purity could absorb.

Why had she come here? Purity examined her motives anew: she'd used boredom as an excuse, but the sprawl of the Dome was large enough to offer a bored, spoiled girl years of exploratory adventure. Why here? Purity wasn't sure she knew the reason herself-was it really the challenge of sneaking into the upper levels of the Pet.i.te Malaison, or was there more at work? Had something or someone led her here? Why had it been so easy to find herself here? Why was she asking herself these questions now, and not before?

There at the foot of one of the support calipers lay an iron mallet.

Someone may not have led me here, thought Purity as she looked at the floor beneath the Dawn Stains, but, sure as sin, someone left that hammer on the floor. Right there for me to find. I suppose that spells the end of coincidence, Purity concluded,doesn't it?

Why a hammer would be there, why a hammer would be permitted within spitting distance of these fragile wafers of antiquity, and who would have done such a thing-these questions demanded answers. Was she a p.a.w.n, or simply talented at finding herself in dangerous predicaments? Could it be the Killer?

Well, there's only one way to find out, now isn't there?

She thought of the Death Boy who'd taught her to pick locks, and of the brother who'd let her take his place in the tourney, and of the father who tacitly approved of her independence. She might be throwing away that life-then again, she might be standing at the threshold of her true inheritance: choice.

She could turn around right now and creep back to her rooms. If she left right this minute, Purity thought she could escape any consequence of today's incursion. NiNi and NoNo certainly weren't a threat, even having discovered her sneaking about where she did not belong. But what awaited Purity if she returned, now? The life of a nightingale who hated to sing. Baubles and b.i.t.c.hery. Prison.

Considering that future, her choice had chosen itself. She could stay a child or she could enact change, then face the consequences as a woman. Whatever came next, it wouldn't be the same endless routine of coldc.u.mbre sandwiches and casual murder.

She looked at the Dawn Stain before her. It glittered in the light, a thing of history and magic. Her life and its confines descended from those ancient, alien panes. From a history that was not human, the Circle Unsung had arisen to hold the city in trust for the Third People who needed it. For all the pilgrims who needed to Die, so that the metaverse could grind on, fostering new lives, on and on. These brightly colored windows were sacred, irreplaceable, probably magical, and symbolic of all that held her back, all that colored her world with the tint of tradition and duty and slaughter. d.a.m.n the rules! There was only one reason Purity could have come this far, though she hadn't known what she would find.

Relying on the same imprudent instincts that had gotten her this far, Purity seized the hammer and, with a whispered apology to her father, hoisted it above her head with a grip steadied for an eon-shattering blow.

Thea Philosopater rested on her divan watching the suns climb above the roofs of the buildings, blue light transforming the ca.n.a.l into a ribbon of steel. Cooper and Marvin would be out of Purseyet already and halfway to the ever-burning towers where the Undertow laired-the cultists knew nearly as many secret ways as Asher did. Ways that Thea would need once Lallowe Thyu learned she had set Cooper free.

She hadn't lied when she'd spoke to Cooper about the gray man: she would rather tear out her eyes than betray his trust. But that was the problem with her broken life-every time she tore out the offending orbs, they grew back.

Isis, the irony. Thea shook her head in silent laughter, tossing the curls that had intoxicated t.i.tans. Isis, you turn out a fake, you fraudulent G.o.ddess, while your onetime avatar raises herself from the dismembered dead until the end of eternity.

Asher kicked down the door with a crash. Thea slipped a sweet into her mouth from the plate at her side, and met Asher's glare in perfect repose. She chewed the morsel while he fumed, giving him time to stoke his famous rage. When in doubt, play to a man's strengths until they could be turned to weakness.

"h.e.l.lo Thea." His voice shook with anger, but not as much as she'd expected. Something else interfered; was it fear? She didn't need to be Cooper to know Asher's fears.

"Milord." She prepared herself for all eventualities. "Are we breaking everything in sight, or just the doors?"

"What did you do with Cooper?"

She shook her chin. "I could ask you the same question. But I won't- I'm not petty, Asher, and I didn't steal your friend. He left here of his own accord, arm-in- arm with a handsome young Death Boy; if you want answers you'll have to extract them from the Undertow."

"I know Thyu arranged the attack. You can stop trying to fool me."

Thea tutted. "Lallowe Thyu did not pay me enough to lie for her. Not to you."

"Why did she pay you?" Asher flipped the chip with her likeness on the bed.

"The same reason you pay your pink woman. To look for something special in a supposedly un- special stranger." She took another sweet for her tongue to work.

"And?" She had him.

"And, I told him that I saw what I imagine you and your scholar saw." Thea swallowed. "Very little."

And then, "I lied, of course. If I told the infant what he may become, he might never become it."

Asher threw up his hands in disbelief. "What did you see, Thea?"

She guarded a sly little smile. "Client confidentiality-you should know that better than anyone."

This made Asher uncomfortable. They both felt it. "So you gave him to the Undertow, who just happened to be swooping by?" he asked, changing tack. "Are you deluded, or desperate?"

"Oh, Asher." She pouted. "Can't it be both?"

"You don't know, do you?" Asher looked at the pearly wallpaper, the china bracketed there for decoration, and wondered how much of Thea was bl.u.s.ter, and how much was Pharaoh. "You don't even know why you play the game, I'll wager. You've become a p.a.w.n again, Thea, and this time you won't have a man to blame."

The Lady suppressed a bristling rage. She blinked slowly, subduing her body by focusing on her heavy lidded facial expression. Every soul could be seduced, her own included.

"What do they want with Cooper?" Asher asked her.

"Another question you'll have to save for a man who knows the answer." She spread her hands with steady fingers and sat on a cus.h.i.+on at the window. "I am just a wh.o.r.e."

"Whose modesty is as false as the rest of her. You sold him to sc.u.m, and you will tell me why." He wished Sesstri were here, she would simply solve this woman like a puzzle, and be done with brothels.

"I attach myself to powerful men. It's something I'm working to improve." She pulled her plate of sweets into her lap.

"The Undertow aren't men, Thea! They're children-they're brainwashed junkie babies."

"And their masters?" Thea stared out the window at the horizon, where a black funnel spun above the ever-burning towers.

"Are not men. Are flying zombies. Are unworthy of your loyalty."

"But they are powerful. And we share a certain predicament. . . ." She reached for another candy.

"You share nothing!" Asher s.n.a.t.c.hed the plate and dashed it against the wall. "What ever you have been led to believe, Thea, there can be no common ground between a living woman and the bruised ghosts who call themselves the skylords. They are abominations; you were a queen!"