shouted something he could not hear. A few angry protesters threw rocks. The first volley fell back to earth well short of him. The second whipped past his head with the force of a crossbow bolt, and he veered to evade. There were angry Craftsmen down there, or else toughs with rock throwers or black powder guns. Swearing, he shifted course to fly over buildings rather than the street.
When he turned, he saw the Canter’s Shell.
A smooth blue sphere enclosed the pyramid at 667 Sansilva. A bubble, Caleb would have called it, if bubbles could curve out as well as in. Buildings reflected back on buildings on the blue surface, leering over the crowd like distortions in a magician’s mirror.
A Canter’s Shell was a weapon from the God Wars: infinite space compressed to finite dimension. Passing through the shell consumed an eternity of subjective time. Enter the shell, and you emerged as a haze of subatomic particles, if at all. Craftsmen used Canter’s Shells in the Wars to fend off priests and mortal followers while they wrestled with gods.
Caleb had never seen a Canter’s Shell used. It was a lethal defense, overkill against any force less than gods or armies. RKC was more scared than he had thought possible.
Optera darted among the Wardens near the shell; several swarmed one Warden’s mount, only to be batted aside by mighty wings. Protestors taking flight—their attacks angry and erratic.
One dove toward the shell, and through. Caleb winced. Creature and rider stretched out and compressed in the reflection, and were gone.
Caleb turned from the pyramid.
Breath came shallow in his chest. The world retreated down a long, dark tunnel as the opteran drained his soul to the lees. He had to find somewhere safe, somewhere with water. He had to find Mal.
He remembered a golden afternoon months before, when they stood on a balcony and looked over the city toward the ocean.
“You could watch the world end from here,” she had said, “and be happy for it.”
Stupid idea, latest in a string of stupid ideas, but at least he would have a place to sit and think. There might even be water.
Shivering, unsure, he flew south to Andrej’s bar.
38
Mal waited on the balcony. She shone with the risen sun.
She looked up as Caleb neared, and waved as he landed—or collapsed, rather, in a gasping heap on the balcony tiles. The opteran took a final sip of his soul, released him, and retreated to the sky.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said as he struggled to his knees. The universe was a lovely indigo. Demons tangoed between his temples. He groaned, swooned, and fell. She pulled him to his feet. Her touch burned like hot metal.
She tried to help him toward a chair, but he shook his head and pointed into Andrej’s. Someone, presumably Mal, had melted the balcony doors. They stepped over a glass puddle into the empty bar.
With Mal’s aid, he stumbled to a circular silver glyph inlaid in the wall by the card tables. Caleb produced a pin from his pocket, stuck his finger, and smeared a drop of blood on the glyph’s center. Behind the wall, counterweighted machines swung into motion, and the glyph began to glow.
“It won’t work,” Mal said. “The bank’s dead. RKC’s frozen, and everyone else in this city is sitting on their funds. You won’t be able to withdraw anything.”
And so the crisis would spread through the world. In the Skeld Archipelago young fishermen begging Deathless Kings to back their latest venture would receive no aid; a soup seller who heated his soups on morning credit would find none to hand.
Dull milky light seeped into Caleb from the glyph. “Andrej,” he tried, and found his voice steady. “Andrej keeps his own credit, for the tables.” His blood flowed, his heart beat. Color charged the world. His legs straightened and steadied.
“Better?”
“A bit.” He glanced at the glass puddle near the entrance. “Better than the door, at least.”
“I was thirsty. It was in the way.”
“Thirsty.” His head swam. “Gods, do you have water?”
Mal held him up, and together they returned to the balcony, to the breeze and open air.
A blue pitcher stood on a table near the banister. Mal fetched him a glass from the bar with a tine of levitation Craft. Hands shaking, he poured himself a cup of water, wet his finger, flicked three drops to the ground—“water in the desert”—and swallowed the rest so fast he choked and spent an undignified minute coughing into his arm. He poured a second cup, which he sipped like wine.
“You never appreciate things so much as in their absence.”
“Hells. Mal. Do you know what’s happened?”
She sat across the table, black leather bag in her lap. She clutched it as she watched him. “Tell me.”
“Qet.” He had to stop for breath. Saying one word felt like running a mile. He took the rest at a sprint. “He’s dead.”
Mal pressed her lips together into a pale line, and bowed her head.
“There’s no water.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Tzimet loose in the streets. Riots in Skittersill, I think, and near RKC. True Quechal, probably.”
“Or else normal people, scared and angry.”
“The King in Red’s closed himself behind a Canter’s Shell. I don’t know if he’s even still, ah—” He stopped before he said, “alive,” and considered. “Awake.”
“I expect he’s collapsed,” Mal said. “His contracts to provide water bind deep. Every faucet in Dresediel Lex, every toilet flushed or factory trying to fill its boilers, is a claim he can’t ignore. Not to mention the strain of keeping the Serpents asleep. He might as well be dead. The rest of the board, too. The more they were tied to RKC, the weaker they’ll be.”
“It doesn’t work like that. I know those contracts. There’s an escape clause, for emergencies. You don’t want the person most qualified to fix the water to collapse if it breaks.”
She shrugged, which he thought was odd. Then again, the entire situation was mad. How did he expect her to act?
He continued: “But the boss wouldn’t have raised that Canter’s Shell unless something was wrong inside the pyramid, as well as outside. We can’t count on his help.”
She nodded, and waited for him to speak.
“You have to reach Heartstone. We’ll fire up the Serpents, use their power to get the water running, kick out the Tzimet, calm everybody down. Once that’s done, one of the big Craft firms should be able to resurrect Qet, or a part of him at least. RKC will have a rough year, but we should survive, and so should the city.”
Mal watched him through half-lidded eyes. He poured himself more water, drank, licked stray drops from his lips. “What do you say?”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why,” she repeated, “should we save Red King Consolidated?”
The marble tabletop was cool and solid. “Because the city needs water. Because people are dying, and we can help.”
“We will.”
Her voice was flat, as it had been on Seven Leaf Station, when the gods writhed beneath the lake. “Are you okay?”
“Never better.”
Mal was intensity restrained, so still the air seemed to shake.
