“Sit down. I’ll call for the…ah…hell.”
With this fragmentary statement, the Captain swept out of the room. Caliban looked after him. Slate wondered if he’d noticed himself flinching back from the man’s movement.
“Hmm,” the paladin said.
“If you make a run for it, you could probably get out of the palace,” she said by way of conversation. “I don’t know if you can kill the front guards barehanded, but it’s probably worth a shot. I’d leave the city right away, mind you.”
He looked at her, his eyes widening.
“Just a thought.” She sat down on the edge of the desk and began reading the warrants for the Stone Bitches again.
“You’re a very odd woman,” he said.
“You don’t know the half of it.”
The door opened again. The Captain ushered a heavyset man inside. He was bald, with the variegated pattern of shine indicating that he was probably shaving his head to avoid showing how badly his hair was thinning. His thick fingers were wrapped around the handle of a large leather case.
“Sit,” the Captain ordered Caliban. And: “Stop reading my mail.”
Caliban quirked an eyebrow and sat. The bald man knelt next to the chair and rolled up the sleeve of the knight’s tunic. Slate stopped reading the Captain’s mail, put one heel up on the desk and hugged her knee to her chest.
The bald man opened his case, and took out a set of needles and a jar of black ink. A wave of rosemary welled up and smacked Slate across the nose.
Gods, I go months without this happening, and now this. Dammit, Grandma, if they hadn’t burned you at the stake, I’d light you myself.
“I’m getting a tattoo,” said Caliban evenly. “Why?”
The Captain pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “Let me start at the beginning. You know that we’re losing the war with Anuket City, I assume?”
Caliban smiled sourly. “They weren’t admitting that when I got locked up, but most of us suspected.”
“We’re still not admitting it, but yes, we are. The problem is the Anuket troops—the Clockwork Boys, as they call ‘em. As fast as the army cuts them down—which frankly isn’t very fast—more show up. They’re not human. We don’t know how to stop them except sheer brute dismemberment.”
Slate could feel her eyes watering. She snuffled.
“Here.” The Captain dug through papers and came up with a hunk of debris. It looked like a cross between the inside of a clock and a piece of drift wood. Tiny gears and cogwheels encrusted the sides like barnacles.
The knight took the object and turned it over in his fingers. “What is this?”
“Part of a Clockwork Boy. It used to move, but we boiled it for a few hours and it finally stopped.”
“Are these made of bone?”
“We don’t know. The alchemists are still fighting over it. Half of them think it’s organic, and the other half think someone carved each little piece. They use a lot of words that I don’t think even they understand.”
“Hmm.” Caliban handed the piece back to the Captain, and wiped his hand on his pant leg.
“Anyway.” The Captain set it down on his desk. “They’ve got to be making them somewhere—or building them, or breeding them, or summoning them, or the Dreaming God knows what.”
Caliban might have said something, but the tattoo artist sank a needle into his bicep, and he winced.
“Anyway. Your—ah—group will be traveling to Anuket Cityto attempt to infiltrate and learn how this is happening. And if possible, to stop it.”
“Snrrrgghghk…” Slate pinched the bridge of her nose and tilted her head back miserably.
“You don’t have spies there already?” asked Caliban.
The Captain shook his head. “Not any more. All the ones we did have wound up going missing.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, which he dropped in Slate’s lap without comment. “Our spies in Anuket had been largely diplomatic corps, frankly—they’re supposed to watch the politics, not break in and steal state secrets. And now they’re presumed dead anyway. So we’re trying a more brute force solution.”
