The Last Page

now when word comes, we try to pretend that we know better? Even these brainless mucks are smart enough to listen and obey.”

Mr. Naylor took no offense at the speaker’s words. His pink eyes could not quite penetrate the gloom.

“So . . . Yloch says she’s coming. Fine. If they say she’ll be in the High King’s Castle, fine. But we’ve already got a muckety in there. Why do we need to organize a raid?”

“The muck is difficult to reach. He has been quiet for years . . . and . . . we don’t want to give away our position.”

Another of the creatures made a bubbling sound. The equivalent of “Hmmmm.” Then it spoke. “I wonder. The opera muck might be able to give us a third chance. Why not let him have a go at getting it for us?” Mr. Naylor grew even more attentive now that they were specifically discussing him. “If she winds up staying at the castle she’ll certainly attend the opera at some point and if not, then at least we’ve got the other two options.”

The whole gruesome obscure assemblage seemed to mewl and smack their mouths together as though tasting the suggestion.

“Yes. Yes. That’s a fine idea. We’ll let the opera muck try his hand.”

Finally Mr. Naylor spoke.

“Who is she?”

The creatures chuckled at his expense because he had come late and missed a large part of the meeting.

“Some Shrdnae Witch who’s been poking around Yloch. She found the Csrym T! Stupid crawler who thinks she can open it and read it like poetry. She has no idea what it means. None at all. We have to get it back and send it to lung—they’ll know what to do.”

“What is her name?” asked Mr. Naylor.

“Name? Name? Stupid muck. We don’t know her name. But she’ll be Ssli if we don’t get it back from her soon. She’ll be Ssli to us all if we don’t stop her from opening the book.” The thing speaking wrung its hands in a horrid parody of human behavior.

Mr. Naylor smiled.

“I’ll need her name if I’m going to invite her to the opera.”

“Names. Muckety wants names.”

The creatures were quite intelligent but they were plagued by their half-states, unable to escape the clutches of madness brought on by too much of two kinds of blood.

“We’ll get you names, you muck. We’ll get you all the names you need for the crawler with the Csrym T.”

“Wonderful,” said Mr. Naylor as though speaking to one of the burgomasters that frequented his shows. “I’ll set about it at once just as soon as I know who she is.”

Something large and heavy slid into the water. The Council was breaking up.

Mr. Naylor stood and brushed himself off as though doing so might solve the ruinous slime that had soaked into his pants. He turned and began sloshing back toward the platform and the weary elevator.

“Mr. Naylor!” burped the voice from the island. It was the first time it had spoken Hinter instead of the guttural language used during the meeting. The first time it had used his name. “Make sure you are careful on this one. Make certain you are extra, extra careful.”

“Of course,” said Mr. Naylor. He smiled and continued toward the platform where he crammed himself back into the tiny compartment and rode the banging lightless box back to reality.

CHAPTER 14

The brown many-tiered spires of Isca City slid skyward over a twisting baroque catacomb of lanes and streets. Glimbenders squeezed out of offal-piled nests behind glowing clock towers.

In the evening, they took to the air: mad droves of singular candent eyeballs stitched with fur and bat wings. They tumbled, gracile bits of blackened ash or street confetti into the sky; whirling out from belfries and cupolas and campaniles, searching for stray cats and dogs, quadrupeds of virtually any kind into whose brains they would drive their slug-filled ovum.

In Lampfire Hills, the buildings grew together as in other sections of the city: nine, twelve, twenty stories high. Dozens of flying buttresses and arches straddled the lanes at various heights, passing thrust onto and between buildings, shoring up the city with dangerous interdependence.

A clockwork shop on the corner of Tower and Mark displayed cuckoos and pocket watches, flickering with the bubbly green glow of chemiostatic fluid.

A deep-hooded figure slid past the shop, down Mark Street. It turned east on Seething Lane, left the pawnshops and clothiers behind, walking briskly for the derelict brewery that sulked in the shadow of Ghoul Court’s south side.

Miriam stopped under the huge decaying shingle whose paint had erupted in a rash of hives. She could barely read the name: VINDAI’S BREWERY.

She melted into the darkness along the north wall, shedding light like water.

A tangle of pipes extruded out and up from the brewery’s sides and roof like fingers come through a meat grinder. The dank alley surrounding the brewery was littered with glass and scuttling refuse that moved torturously in the wind.

She took hold of a sturdy elbow and mounted the wall, careful not to throw her weight in such a way that might buckle or snap the tenuous moorings.

There were faint sounds weltering through the shattered panes of glass. Coiling broken bits of conversation in Trade, not meant to be heard, rose heatedly into the deserted air.

The city was quiet here: only the drone of distant factories and the low, almost unheard hum of far-off conversations mixing with streetcars and footsteps and wind. The collective muffled roar hardly interfered with her ability to eavesdrop on the voices issuing from the brewery’s lightless interior.

“. . . got away. But not the others. Both dead.”

Someone answered. “. . . to be expected . . . not without a price.” The voices were passionate and tense as though discussing something monumentally significant.

Miriam’s fingertips were the only parts of her hands not covered by supple leather gloves. They searched the window ledge with expert care, feeling for blades of broken glass or loose mortar—any kind of dangerous debris. Her ears had tuned themselves to the conversation going on inside and she could now make out larger parts of what they were saying.

“Once this thing is stripped down I s’pose we’ll have the honor of carting it across town in chunks.”

The other voice muttered something indiscernible as Miriam found a handhold and pulled herself up into the casement. Her cloth boots had soft tacky rubber soles. They made no sound.

For a moment her body cut a lithe silhouette against the gray gloom of the alley while her eyes struggled to sort the murky shapes inside the building. Miriam had not carved her eyes. There was no way to tell whether the occupants would happen to look in her direction while she formulated her next move. All she could do was minimize her exposure by moving swiftly from conspicuous to hidden.

The element of chance was unavoidable.

Finally she made out a rusted tank. A great cylinder on its side. She leapt, lighted on its top, legs buckling to absorb her weight as soundlessly as possible. Even so, the landing produced a dull hum as the metal caved slightly and reverberated under her weight.

“What was that?”

Miriam opened her mouth and made a sound exactly like a cat. She tossed a shard of glass onto the floor.

“Some tom gone hunting,” said the other voice. “Where are you putting these?”

“Pile’s over there. Keep the fat ones separate. They go to the housing.”

“Fuck off! I know the difference between an anchor bolt and a—”

“Shh—”