He exhaled, waiting.
Still nothing.
He lifted the sword. It was a heavy blade, not beautiful, but that was correct. There were beautiful swords for parades and temple services. This was for the butchery of demons. It needed to be strong and sharp and brutal.
His muscles did not fire with alien strength. He did not turn around and paint the walls with Slate’s blood.
The exorcism worked. The demon’s really dead.
Be damned. Or not.
It occurred to him that his face was wet. He set the sword down, very carefully, and wiped his eyes.
He looked over, and saw that Slate wasn’t looking at him, very deliberately, and took that, as perhaps it was intended, as a kindness.
“So tell me about yourself,” Caliban said to Slate, the next evening. Brenner had gone off on some unknown errand of his own, seeing to whatever odd supplies an assassin needed, and they were eating a quiet meal together in the common room of the suite.
She paused, her spoon in midair. “Me?”
“We’re going to be on the road together for what—two weeks?—and in Anuket City for quite a while after that. I might as well know who I’m traveling with.”
She set her spoon down and picked up a piece of bread,chasing the remnants of the soup around her bowl with it. “Um. My name is Slate, I’m thirty, and I have a tattoo that’s going to eat me unless I find out how to stop the Clockwork Boys. I’ve never actually met a Clockwork Boy.” She took a bite of bread. “But apparently the only way to stop them is in Anuket City, which no one on this side of the mountains has been able to get to for months. I think those are the important bits.”
Caliban sighed, leaning back in his chair. He had gone out earlier, and while he still jumped away from sudden movements, the sky had not been so huge, and the world not quite so incomprehensible. He’d stayed close to the walls and doorways nonetheless.
The sword across his back seemed to anchor him. Perhaps that wasn’t a surprise.
He ran his fingers down it now, slung over the back of the chair. “Brenner said you were some kind of…guerrilla accountant.”
Her gaze sharpened. “Did he? Damnit.”
“Is it true?”
“It was. I suppose I’m not much of one now.”
“How do you go from stealing paperwork to a sentence of death?”
She smiled. It was a surprisingly charming smile. “So if you alter the wrong papers, they charge you with aiding and abetting the enemy. Who knew?”
His eyebrows went up. “And they sent you out on this jaunt anyway?”
“It was years ago,” she said defensively. “I was young and dumb and didn’t know better than to fool around with defense contract paperwork. I haven’t done that for years, but somebright young clerk—may his pens leak eternally—managed to trace my handwriting. I hadn’t learned to disguise it very well back then.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t a big deal, really—tampered with some paperwork to make it appear to be under budget, but—well, anyway. With the latest war on, they apparently have people going through all the old contracts, and…you know.”
Caliban did indeed know. He would have been very surprised if they’d gotten so far as executing Slate. Skilled forgers were too valuable to waste.
She took another bite of bread. “So anyway, I got charged with a count of treason, and I thought they’d hang me, but the Dowager had this wild idea. I lived in Anuket City for a few years, so I’m supposed to know the lay of the land.” She dismissed the land and its lay with a flick of her wrist. “Never mind that I was gone long before the Clockwork Boys were invented…or grown…or discovered…or whatever.”
“So they chose you.”
“Uh-huh. I think she figures there might be some complicated recipe for making Clockwork Boys, and I might need to steal it.”
“Is it likely to be a recipe, do you think?”
She shook her head. “It could be anything. It could also be a person—some kind of sorcerer or wonderworker or something—and we’re hoping Brenner can kill him. Or her, or them. It could be an artifact, in which case one of us can probably lift it.”
“What if it’s a process? Something that a lot of people know?”
Slate shrugged. “Well, then, we try to learn it, and come back and tell the Dowager. Maybe her pet wonderworkers can figure out a weakness. Maybe they’d all melt if you throw live chickens at them or something.”
