Painted garishly by the light of the lantern and the shadows of the snarled weeds, the mortal remains of the hero climbed out of the hole and faced the thief.
There wasn’t much left, just old, old bone and rags, which the iron had restored to a mostly human shape, wired together in much the same way that scientists do with the skeletons that are displayed in museums. But the iron had done more than just piece the bones together; it had given the long-dead hero a bellows and paper-thin vibrating places and hollow resonating places inside the remnants of his ribs and skull, connected by delicate throat pipes.
The hero of iron and bone made a sound of rasping metal, like a sigh and a cough and a grinding all forged into one. Then, still cast in black nettle-shadow and shards of lantern light, it spoke. “Why have you desecrated my grave?”
It was enough to make Pantin shudder. But if the thief quailed, the boy couldn’t see it. Just as he’d feared, now that he was past the initial shock, Trigemine held his ground. “I am here for the coffret that was buried with you, my lord.”
“It is long gone, and I have promised curses for any that disturb so much as the weeds that cover my resting place.” The hero raised a bone-and-metal hand and pointed a finger at the thief. “Go.”
“I will go.” But the thief tilted his head and looked at the hero thoughtfully. “How did it come to be gone, then, my lord? Who disturbed your rest before I came? And how long ago? Perhaps I can avenge the theft for you.”
Pantin and Troublewit looked at each other. “Oh, dear,” Troublewit said softly. “I should have had the hero say that it was never here at all. How shall I have him reply now?”
Pantin thought fast, but before either of them could come up with an answer, the bones of the hero below gave a strange shake. As the boy and the gargoyle stared down into the grave garden, the creature Troublewit had constructed began to move. Not merely move: it began to change. It was a bit like watching someone who had been sitting or standing for too long suddenly straighten up and shift around to work out the kinks—if, in working out the kinks, that person also had to actually put some of its body parts back in the right places. Joints that the iron had connected at slightly wrong angles twitched themselves true. A scapula that had been installed backwards stretched up and out like a wing, reversed itself, and folded back into place. The hero’s left hand plucked one finger from its right, the iron filaments that had been holding it in place instantly letting go as the hero tugged it. Then, as he held it over an empty spot on his left hand, the filaments there reached out and wired the finger securely in.
“Are you doing that?” Pantin asked, confused.
“I am . . . not,” Troublewit whispered. “I don’t understand this at all.”
Then, his bones in the right places now and standing taller than before, the hero began again to talk.
“I will speak for myself now.” The voice was subtly different this time. The reorganized body did not look up at the window, but both boy and gargoyle were immediately certain it was aware of their presence and that the statement was meant for the two of them.
Trigemine, meanwhile, simply inclined his head. “As you say, my lord.”
“And you will drop that spade.” The hero nodded its skull at the shovel the peddler-thief grasped. “You hold it like a weapon.”
The thief hesitated only a second, then plunged the shovel’s tip into the weedy earth so that it stood vertically, handle within reach. “As you command, my lord.”
“Your politeness is a farce,” the hero said. “You are a thief. A robber of graves. But you are too late. The iron has taken my coffret. It has taken it down, deep into the earth, below the tunnels under the city, below the land that lies beneath the tunnels. It is out of your reach.”
“Is there no way to retrieve it? I would happily do whatever’s required to bring it back to you, my lord. I have no interest in what it holds. I would ask only the box itself in payment.”
“There is no way at all,” the hero said, “unless you can convince the iron to return it. I rather think, however, that the iron would return the box to me anyhow if I were to ask it. But I do not propose to do that.”
Trigemine looked at the iron-and-bone revenant for a moment. Then he kicked a foot out savagely at the shovel, and he swore.
“So much for your sham politeness,” the hero said in a tone of dark amusement as the shovel flew across the tiny cemetery and struck against the old wall. “Go now, before you do any more damage to my garden.” He stretched out his arms, flexed his composite fingers. “For I believe I could do a good deal of damage with this body if I chose to.”
The thief swore again, collected his tools and his shovel, and fought his way through the nettles and out into the night. He did not take his lantern, because the hero stood in the way.
When the thief had gone, the hero turned up to the window. “Come down, please.”
Pantin and Troublewit looked at each other. “All right,” the gargoyle said, and Troublewit scrambled easily down the stone of the wall. Pantin leaned out the window and saw the metal of the rainspout change its shape again, this time into a perfectly serviceable ladder that stretched all the way from the boy’s
