“Information loses its value once shared.” Tinkerer’s voice was as flat as ever, but Lizanne detected a glimmer of hard resolve in his gaze. “I deduce that you are an agent sent by a corporate entity to retrieve the figure known to history as the Mad Artisan. He, as you can see, is dead and all that remains of his mind now resides in me. If you want it, you will extricate me from this city.”
“Keen to see the outside world, are you?”
“I believe there will be much of interest there. Also, the environment is likely to be more conducive to longevity.”
“Then you may find it a disappointment,” Lizanne muttered as images of Carvenport’s fall flicked through her head. “There is a war,” she added, “only just begun, but, I believe will grow to terrible proportions before long.” She nodded at the Artisan’s skeleton. “If you hold his memories, then you must know of the White Drake.”
For the first time Tinkerer betrayed some true discomfort, a faint shudder running through his body, though his features remained impassive.
“I see that you do,” Lizanne said, stepping closer. “Then you might be interested to know that it’s awake, and very hungry.”
Tinkerer stared at her in silence for some time, a slight frown on his brow and eyes taking on an unfocused cast. Lizanne thought he might be about to fall into some kind of seizure before understanding dawned. He’s calculating.
“You came here in search of knowledge that might aid in its defeat,” Tinkerer said finally. “I believe I have such knowledge. You already know the price.”
She briefly considered trying to coerce more information from him, but knew it would be counter-productive, if not dangerous. Besides, anything he shared now would be of little use if she couldn’t get them both out of the city.
“Very well,” she said, turning and gesturing at the exit. “If you’d care to show me out, I’ll begin preparations.”
“And what is the nature of these preparations?”
“I shall need to make use of your skills, for a start.”
“In what manner?”
Lizanne voiced a humourless laugh. Vile as this place was, she had a suspicion that the fate she was about to orchestrate for Scorazin might weigh on her conscience for some time to come. “Suffice to say, I intend to rekindle the flame of revolution.”
? ? ?
“What is the true definition of money?” the man on her left demanded.
Lizanne supplied the required quote with only a slight pause for recollection, it being one of Bidrosin’s better known pieces of na?vety. “‘Money is best thought of as a shared delusion. An unspoken fraudulent compact between the rich and the poor ascribing value to worthless tokens in return for the illusion of societal security.’”
“Who commanded your cell in Corvus?” the woman on the right asked.
Lizanne sat on a chair facing a blank cellar wall, both her interrogators standing just outside her field of vision. They alternated, the man quizzing her on revolutionary dogma whilst the woman barked out more specific questions regarding Lizanne’s fictional career as an insurgent. It was a subtler technique than that employed by Electress Atalina, however Lizanne suspected the Learned Damned weren’t above resorting to more direct methods should she prove unconvincing.
She had eschewed a more contrived approach for simply walking up to the house they occupied. It stood at the western fringe of Apple Blossom Park, a three-storey mansion which, according to Makario, had been the residence of the city’s richest mine-owner in the days before the Emperor chose Scorazin as his principal prison. Two young men moved to confront her before she could ascend the steps to the front door. A brief enquiry regarding the presence of any fellow members of the Correspondent Brotherhood had been enough to see her swiftly, and none-too-gently, conveyed to this cellar.
“I only knew him as Severil, he knew me as Valina,” Lizanne replied, two names she had plucked from Hyran’s head during their only trance, along with a wealth of intelligence on the Brotherhood the young Blood-blessed probably didn’t know he had retained. “He’s dead now,” she added. “The Cadre paraded him in front of me before blowing his brains out. It happened in a cellar much like this one, actually.”
“Just answer the question,” the woman snapped. “Don’t elaborate.”
“What differentiates the peasant from the manufactory worker?” the man asked.
A trick question, and easily spotted. “‘Only one’s prejudice towards the other. In all other respects peasant and worker are essentially the same, only distinguished from one another by the methods utilised in their exploitation and enslavement.’”
There was a short pause before the woman asked her next question and Lizanne detected a partially suppressed reluctance in her tone. “What secrets did you betray in return for your life?”
She saw the trap in this question too. The impulse would be to proclaim her unwavering loyalty to the cause and eternal hatred of all traitors and informants. But they would know it a lie instantly, for no revolutionary could survive the Cadre’s ministrations without talking, even if the only reward was to live out one’s years in this miserable pit.
“Much the same as you, I imagine,” she replied. “I gave them the names of my surviving cell members, and told them of the unlicensed printing-press in my father’s basement. They killed him in front of me too.”
The answer heralded a long silence, presumably as they reflected on their own betrayals. “Why are you here?” the man asked, a resentful edge to his tone. No one liked to be reminded of their weakness, after all.
“Electress Atalina sent me to spy on you,” Lizanne said. “She suspects you may have aided in the recent attempt on her life.”
She could sense the glance they exchanged and found she had to conceal a grin. Unexpected truth was often an effective tactic. “As for myself,” she went on, “I couldn’t care less if you cut the old cow’s head off with a rusty saw. I am here on different business.”
Lizanne felt the chill kiss of steel on her neck as the woman leaned close to whisper in her ear, “It would be wise for us to simply kill you now.”
“Then you would be denying yourselves an opportunity such wretched souls as us are rarely afforded.”
The knife pressed deeper then stopped as the man spoke again, “What opportunity?”
This time Lizanne allowed herself a smile. “Redemption, citizen. I believe the destruction of the Emperor’s greatest prison would be a potent symbol. Wouldn’t you agree?”
? ? ?
The woman’s name was Helina, the man’s Demisol. She was short, the top of her head barely cresting five feet, whilst he was tall and rake thin. They would have made for a comical pairing in other circumstances. However, at this juncture they appeared to be what they were, two jaded but undeniably dangerous people, made lean and hollow-eyed by a restricted diet. Lizanne took solace from the faint glimmer of lingering idealism she saw in their gaze. They would be of little use had their revolutionary fervour not survived the rigours of life within these walls.