The Broken Bell

I leaned against the lever. It moved again, and the falling floor beneath the men dropped, just a bit, but enough to jerk their ropes taut.

“Stricken,” spat the tall one. “We were hired by Stricken. But he was hired by someone else. Someone high up.”

My helper reached the steps and came stomping up them.

“Sure he is. These are your last words, you know. Better start calling on Angels.”

“They call her Silver Eyes. Wand-waver. Big doings, I hear. Mixed up with the ones coming. I know things. Big things. For Angel’s sake, please, don’t.”

“That’s old news.” My helper came stomp-stomping over. I put two coppers in his dirty hand and nodded at the lever.

“Happy trails, gentlemen.”

We gripped it, both of us.

And then we pushed.

He spat out names. I didn’t recognize many of them. But in that brief time between the lever’s first movement and the end of its travel, the tall one reeled off six strange names between pleas for mercy.

The lever went loose. The false floors dropped. Both men went plunging down.

All the way to the trash-strewn ground, where they lay kicking and squirming.

I noticed that even Shorty had pissed himself.

The crowd roared. A fresh rain of garbage fell. The man I’d paid two coppers to commit a pair of murders looked up at me with eyes gone wary.

“That ain’t my fault. I ain’t givin’ this here money back. I ain’t.”

“Wouldn’t dream of asking for it. Scoot. With the thanks of a grateful nation.”

He scooted.

I followed him down the hangman’s stairs.

The soldiers were standing over the pair, poking them with swords to make sure they stayed put.

Both cussed me with considerable enthusiasm.

“Get what you needed?” asked a soldier.

“More than I needed.” I took a moment to scribble out a note, fold it and write Hisvin’s name on the outside. “Give this to your ranking officer,” I said. “Tell him he’s to give it to his. Up the line, until the Corpsemaster sees it. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What about these two?”

“Put them somewhere damp in case the Corpsemaster wants them later.”

That got me a fresh round of cussing.

I put my back to them and headed for my carriage.

Randal was darting through the crowd ahead of me. I guessed he’d watched the whole thing.

He clambered back to his perch, took up the reins and regarded me with a face devoid of any hint of mischief.

“Where to, sir?”

I chuckled and told him to head for Cambrit.

My office was, much to my surprise, intact. There was a letter from Lethway lying unopened on the floor. My desk was shoved around, and my hat-rack was knocked over, but the lack of fresh blood and recent fires was encouraging. I supposed that the pair I’d nearly hung hadn’t put up much of a fight. Wise of them, considering that I’d sent fifty nervous soldiers to fetch them.

Three-leg Cat was even in attendance. He graced me with a rough purr while I filled his bowl with dried jerky from a tin. I sat and watched him eat and found myself waiting to hear Mama come knocking at my door.

But Mama was away, and if she had any sense she’d stay away until the invasion was done. Gertriss was helping Evis deplete the Regency’s store of cigars and brandy. Darla was at work, and when she left for home she’d find a trio of soldiers assigned as her bodyguards, with instructions to see her home and keep her there.

Which left me on my own.

Three-leg read my thoughts and disputed them with a coarse meow. I scratched his knobby head and listened to the street noise.

I judged it to be nearly four of the clock. Since the exchange at the Timbers was scheduled for the traditional midnight hour, I had eight hours to prepare.

First, I read Lethway’s letter. That didn’t take long. He just named the place and the time. I found the lack of idle pleasantries and well wishes somewhat disheartening.

I took off my shoes and loosened my tie and propped my sock feet up on my desk. Then I took out the dingus Victor had given me, studied it intently for a moment and went to sleep right there with the deadly thing in my hand.

When I woke, it was dark. I sprang to my feet to find legs and feet gone numb, and I stomped and cursed and made my way to my door.

I stuck my head out, breathed a sigh of relief. Old Mr. Bull’s windows were still alight. I could hear the Arwheat brothers down the street rolling down their shutters. It was barely Curfew, then. I hadn’t slept through my best chance of getting stabbed to death since the end of the War.

“Hurrah,” I said to the empty street. Even Three-leg was gone, engaged in feline errands all his own.

I changed my clothes and made what preparations I could. I wrote out a few letters, including a will. One was addressed to Mama. One to Gertriss. One to Evis. The longest was Darla’s.

Then I gathered my various implements and stood inside my open door.

That’s all I’ll leave behind if I die tonight, I thought. One middling fancy desk and a pair of beat-up chairs. Half a crown of clothes in my closet. Three bottles of beer in my icebox. One half-burnt door. One Three-leg Cat, expert at producing foul odors.

Hell of a legacy.

I shut my door, locked it, and tried to shake the feeling that I was putting my back to Cambrit for the very last time.

I had my borrowed Avalante cab meet me in front of the Velvet. Immune to Curfew and the law, the Velvet was teeming with carriages and cabs, even after Curfew. Another fancy black carriage idling at the curb wasn’t going to attract any attention.

Randal, still lost in his too-large coat, snapped to attention when he saw me ambling his way. I was afraid he was going to start Sirring me in public, but he bit his tongue and sat silent while I clambered inside.

I’d laid things out for him earlier. He waited until my door slammed shut and then we were off, another black carriage lost in the night.

Randal took a circuitous route southward, keeping to sleepy little backstreets when possible. He seemed to be having so much fun I didn’t have the heart to tell him we weren’t being followed.

I hadn’t really expected that we would be. Lethway knew where I’d be, at midnight. The kidnappers knew it too, courtesy of his letter. Pratt I’d told myself.

No need to chase the rabbit when he’s hell-bent to hop right into the nice hot oven.

I’d formulated and rejected half a dozen plans concerning the meeting with at the Timbers. Bring in twenty or more armed soldiers?

Too noisy. The kidnappers would bolt. Lives would probably be lost in the fracas. While my stunt with the Army earlier in the day had paid off, there’d been little risk of bloodshed. Tonight, bloodshed was inevitable.

Sneak in back, employing my Army-honed stealthy wiles to slither snakelike through the trash, thus entering the fray unawares?

Too many eyes expecting just that. If the sorcerer was anything like the ones I’d known in the War, each nook and every cranny within sight of the Timbers was now filled with magical traps and sundry arcane gotchas.

No, a sneaking slither worked once, but it wasn’t going to work again.