“There’s a reason they’re down to prison scum now. First batch got squashed by a clocktaur column. In full sight of the military outpost, I’m told.”
Caliban winced. “And the second group?”
“Oh, this is the fun one.”
“…Fun.”
“Well, for a value of fun.” Slate picked up the dog again. “See, the Captain would really like it if we could find the second group…or what’s left of them.”
“Would he, now.”
“Yeah, the Captain would like a lot of things.” Slate snorted. “They think they checked in at the army outpost here, although we should probably double-check on that. Fog of war and all. After that, they lose track of them completely.”
Caliban tilted his head, eyes narrowing, and said, “I gather from your expression there’s more to it than running afoul of a Clockwork Boy.”
“Oh, I have no idea how they died,” said Slate. “It might be exactly that. What matters is what they had with them. Brother Amadai’s journal.”
She sat back with an expression of triumph. Caliban looked blank.
“The scholar from Anuket City,” said Slate. “The one our extremely obnoxious dedicate is hoping to track down. The reason the Many-Armed God people are involved in this at all.”
“I was a little distracted when he was talking,” said Caliban. “I was hoping you wouldn’t go for his throat.”
“Well, it was a near thing.”
Caliban gazed into his drink, clearly fighting back a smile.
“Right,” said Slate. “So Amadai is some kind of genius and he went off to Anuket City ages ago because that’s where the best artificers live. Anyway, the spies that are mostly dead now? One of them got a package out before they got caught, which was this journal from Brother Amadai. That’s part of how we know he’s involved. And the journal had drawings of the Clockwork Boys in it, although Amadai’s handwriting was abysmal and a lot of bits seemed nonsensical. So they sent the journal along with the second group, who were supposed to be meeting up with ourdearfriend Learned Edmund here on theotherside of the blockade, in hopes that Learned Edmund could decipher more of it. The spy couldn’t include any kind of notes with it, but they’re hoping it might have a key to stopping the Clockwork Boys.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened. I’m told the Captain got a rather plaintive homing pigeon message two weeks after the meeting time, asking where they were.”
“So they didn’t make it,” said Caliban thoughtfully. “And the journal?”
“Presumably with their bodies, assuming they weren’t murdered by bandits who tossed it on the fire.”
“Did no one think to make a copy?”
“Oh,yes.” Slate’s lip curled. “And if I meet them, they’ll throw me in the dungeons for murder instead of forgery. That useless, motherless, talentless son of a goat!”
Caliban’s eyebrows went up and he silently topped off her glass.
“Paraphrased,” said Slate angrily. “And corrected spellings and left out margin notes about the weather and whatnot, because they were clearly unimportant.”
“I take it they weren’t unimportant?” asked Caliban.
“It was code,” said Slate, gulping whiskey and stifling her cough with the back of her hand. “A cascading code, which is a thing the Many-Armed God people do sometimes when they want to prove they’re smarter than anyone else. But without all the supposedly unimportant bits, and without the misspellings, we don’t know where to start or what the keys are. The temple sent back a nice note saying that it was now gibberish and did they still have the original? Which they’d sent off with the secondgroup of idiots. I was so mad when the Captain told me about that that I could spit.”
“So we need to find this journal,” said Caliban.
Slate sighed, her anger fleeing as rapidly as it had come. “Maybe. And maybe we do and Learned Edmund finally translates it, and it’s mostly recipes for boiled cabbage. I can see why you wouldn’t write, “To Break Clockwork Boy, Hit Here” if you’re in Anuket City, mind you, but just because something’s in a complicated code with scary pictures doesn’t mean it’s going to be any good.”
Caliban stared into the bottle.
After a moment, he set it aside and picked up the stone dog.
“So which way arewegoing, then?”
