“Competitor?” Helina asked, lowering her voice and closing the dining-room door.
“Someone intent on sowing discord,” Lizanne replied. “Rather than destruction.”
“Who?”
“As yet unclear, but I believe the Coal King’s chief lieutenant may be at the heart of it.”
“Julesin?” Demisol asked. “He’s barely been here six months.”
“And yet somehow managed to rise high in the interim. What do you know of him?”
“Well, he’s a killer to be sure. Cut down three men his first day through the gate. All fair fights, and none were members of the main gangs.”
“So he established his credentials early, and was careful about his targets.” Lizanne concealed a faint grin of recognition. An agent to be sure. But whose? She recalled what the Blood Imperial had told her in Empress Azireh’s crypt: Sent my two best. The first one lasted three days, the second managed four . . . She hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now the prospect of two presumably experienced and capable agents failing to survive more than a few days in Scorazin seemed unlikely. Dreadful place though it was, she had come to understand that the greatest threats came from hunger or disease rather than other inmates. Unless they were spotted by someone even more capable. Also, they were both comparatively recent inmates whilst Julesin had arrived months before. If he isn’t Blood Cadre, then who is he? She decided it was not a matter she could afford to spend too much time considering. In a complex mission the straightest course is usually the best one. Another lesson from her training days, one she had often found useful. Cadre or not, he’s an obstacle, and the Electress will be expecting swift results.
“Do we delay?” Demisol asked.
Lizanne shook her head. “Delay invites discovery and adds to the risk of betrayal. Not to impugn the commitment of your fellow citizens, but the more time they have to dwell on the likelihood of their demise, the more their thoughts will slip towards survival.”
“We’ve been emphasising the prospect of escape,” Helina said. “Though our comrades aren’t idiot criminals to be easily gulled.”
“We have three days until Ore Day,” Lizanne said. “Do everything you can to shore up their resolve before then.”
“The main device?” Demisol asked.
“It’ll be ready,” she said, choosing not to share the news about the interruption to Tinkerer’s work. She had visited him the night after the parley to collect the contents of the sack, finding him almost completely absorbed in his labour.
“Repairing the winding-gear will take only half a day,” he had said, apparently incapable of raising his gaze from the large iron-and-copper egg on his work-bench. “Subject to provision of suitable materials.” Such industriousness scarcely seemed possible to her but then Tinkerer, as Aunt Pendilla would have said, was cut from cloth of a different weave.
“And that?” Lizanne asked, nodding to the egg.
“Nearing completion.” He reached for a cylindrical component and carefully slotted it into the egg’s exposed innards, his slender fingers moving with an almost loving grace. “Mixing the compound will take longer, however.”
“How many did you bring?” Demisol asked, nodding at the sack at Lizanne’s feet. She hefted it onto the defaced dining-table and revealed the contents.
“Twelve in total,” she said, as the two revolutionaries inspected the sack’s contents. “Two with fifteen-minute fuses, the rest only three seconds so make sure your people know to throw them the moment they’re primed. What other weapons have you gathered?”
“Knives and clubs, mostly. Though we have two citizens skilled with bow and arrow.”
“Tell them to kill any gunners that survive. Just one blast of canister and our whole enterprise will be lost.”
“We seem to be putting great faith in our fellow inmates,” Demisol commented. “How do we know they’ll respond as we hope?”
“We don’t,” Lizanne admitted. “But would you hesitate to risk your life for the smallest chance of escaping this place?”
? ? ?
She jammed a chair under the door-handle and sat on her bed, mouth wide as she inserted the pliers Tinkerer had grudgingly parted with. They left a metallic sting on her tongue before clamping onto the ceramic tooth. She had lost the original in a confrontation with a rival corporate agent some years before and Director Bloskin, never one to forsake an opportunity, had introduced Lizanne to the appointed dentist for Exceptional Initiatives. The procedure required hours in his chair and copious doses of Green but by the end of it she had a new tooth. It was fixed to the root of the original with a gold screw, meaning it could be removed and replaced. The ceramicist the Brotherhood found for her in Corvus had been exceptionally skilled, producing a near-perfect facsimile of an upper-right molar with a hollow cavity large enough for a small amount of product. The screw loosened after several seconds of uncomfortable effort as Lizanne tried not to damage her surrounding teeth. Blue flooded her mouth as it came free, burning as she swallowed, finding a certain joy in the sensation of recovered power. Life as an un-Blessed, she was finding, was not much to her liking.
Hyran’s mindscape closed in immediately, in surprisingly accomplished and lurid detail. At least he’s been practising, she thought, watching the pale youth in mid-cavort with a swirling cloud of naked female flesh. Glimpses into the carnal imaginings of fellow Blood-blessed were a frequent feature of the trance, usually tactfully ignored by unspoken understanding. However, she had yet to trance with someone who appeared to have crafted his entire mindscape from the stuff of adolescent lust.
Sorry if I’m interrupting. Lizanne put enough force into the thought to banish the swirl of phantom nymphs, but not before catching sight of their faces. All the same and all familiar. It’s heartening to learn you have such an acute visual memory, she went on as the boy’s image gaped at her, a frozen lanky thing in the suddenly confused mist. In which case, she added with a pointed downward glance, I’m sure you can remember what clothes look like.
The surrounding clouds flushed a deep shade of crimson, roiling thick enough to obscure Hyran’s image. When they cleared he stood fully clothed and eyes averted, the shade of his mortification lingering in the clouds.
I . . . His thoughts stuttered, sending bolts of lightning through the clouds and for a moment it seemed as if his loss of concentration would shatter the trance.
Calm. She coloured the thought with a soothing memory, the day Aunt Pendilla pressed a damp cloth to her grazed knee and banished infant tears with chicken soup. Focus. I don’t have long.
Sorry. The clouds were still pulsing red, though now shot through with the dark grey of his regret. Been trancing every day . . . Tried building a castle or something, like you said. But . . . I got bored waiting.
I’m here now. Are you in contact with Citizens Korian and Arberus?
Yes. We’re only a few miles from Scorazin. Been gathering strength, like you wanted.