Quartz (16 page)

“What the…?” began Tristan, and broke off as a frenzy of shouts and bangs erupted into the air. The Prince hurried after Rafe.

They came into an open square and saw it, a light machine, all softly gleaming metal and long, many-jointed arms. Dark figures, cloaked and hooded, had surrounded it. Rafe paused in surprise, then recoiled as they set upon the machine with boots and fists, hammers and cudgels. The machine's delicate proboscis swayed this way and that, its wheels spun, its body shuddered, seeking a way out. Its screams gave way to whimpers. It was not a war machine, not built for violence, certainly not equipped to handle the abuse it was being dealt. Outside of its limited functions, it was confused, disoriented.

It was also royal property.

Rafe took a deep breath and bellowed, "Stop! In the King's name!"

The assault ebbed, then surged back onto the machine in renewed vigor. The machine's neck flailed wildly as the men pushed at its body. It toppled on to its side. A lithe figure jumped on top of it.

Antimachinists, and of the worst kind, too. He had unwittingly brought Tristan into danger. To be an antimachinist was to be an anarchist—at the very least, to be against the monarchy.

"Run." Rafe shouted at Tristan, who gawked at the spectacle. Rafe grabbed the prince’s arm, Tristan resisted, and more figures emerged from nearby alleys.

"Nice and easy," said one, in a muffled growl, holding a truncheon ready. “Don’t give us any trouble, and we can make this quick.”

The figure on the machine loosened its hood and pulled down its muffler. Black curls escaped her cap, and a strong face with full red lips and large wild eyes looked out at the crowd.

"Friends!" said the woman. "We have struck the first blow tonight! Tonight, we take back the streets, take back the factories and the tunnels and the caves! We take back our jobs, our livelihoods that this machine and others like it have stolen from us! Unlike the rest of our easily-led brethren,
we
see the menace,
we
know the dangers of these machines, relics of a distant past, servants to masters long-dead who held us in disdain. We will have none of the mages' toys!"

A ragged cheer went up. The thugs surrounding Rafe and Tristan were silent, staring hard and unblinking at their captives.

Rafe's fingers crept into his pocket. "On my word," he muttered, not looking at Tristan, "run."

Tristan did not answer. He stared at the passionate orator. "I always thought they were grumpy old men looking for something to blame for their own inability to keep their jobs. Not young and female, and—beautiful."

"Tristan," said Rafe, through gritted teeth. "Just run, when I say, all right?" He pulled a capsule from his pocket, broke the inner tube in one quick motion, and lobbed it into the air. "R
UN
!" He put his arm over his face, grabbed Tristan’s jacket, and charged.

The magnesium flare exploded in a flash of intense light. The thugs cried as stinging particles showered down on them. Rafe plowed warm bodies out of the way. Risking a peek, he dragged Tristan deep into the alleys, while the blinded men howled vengeance.

Shouts behind them, shouts in front of them. Rafe ducked into a nook, keeping Tristan close, while the city watchmen, the Guarda Publica, ran towards the fray. Tristan started to hail the uniformed men, but Rafe held him back.

"But they're…” Tristan began.

Rafe shook his head. "You can take your report to the King himself. The less said about your whereabouts during this, the better. Now, come. We're taking the trolley back to the palace and no arguments."

"What—what was in your pocket?" Tristan wanted to know.

Rafe's lips twisted in a not-smile. "Unholy relics of the mages." At Tristan's gape, he added, "Flares. All surveyors have them. So now you've seen your first antimachinists in action. Any thoughts?"

"They're not all men," said Tristan. "And that girl—she's not half bad looking."

Rafe rolled his eyes.

M
ANY IN THE PRESS
had complained publicly, as did much of the nobility in private, that Roland Bloodoak, with his rumpled hair, leather apron, grease-blackened hands and mild distracted air, looked more like a machine operator than the King of Oakhaven.

Any who saw him tonight would revise their opinion. Surrounded by hastily summoned cabinet ministers and guards, Roland’s face was hard under the yellow magelights of his receiving chamber. As first Rafe, and then the stammering Tristan, gave their reports, Roland seemed to grow in wrath and stature. The very silence held its breath after Tristan let his words trail away. Everyone pressed back from the dais, waiting for the king’s inevitable explosion at this attack on his beloved Machine.

It didn’t come.

Roland clenched his hands around the arms of his ancient oak chair, knuckles white as he heaved himself up to his feet, moving slowly as if bound in chains. But when he stood, eyes smoldering, it was not as a man burdened, but a man liberated.

“Risewater.” Roland did not raise his voice, but the hiss reached everyone’s ears.

“Sir.” The commander of the Guarda Royal stepped forward.

“Go into the city. Arrest the editors of
The Daily Gazette
and
The Muckracker
for their part in inciting treason. Also…”

Rafe’s reaction was mirrored in the shaken expressions of everyone else as Roland detailed the list of persons to be arrested in a slow lifeless voice. Editors, writers, and publishers of tracts critical of the Machine. Union leaders and outspoken local politicians. Street corner orators.

“Tristan.” Roland spoke without looking at his son. “You got a good look at the female leader. You will provide a detailed description of her so we can get a sketch out to the Guarda Publica.” He didn’t wait for Tristan’s hesitant “y-yes” before outlining more strategies.

Rafe exchanged glances with his friend Wil, a captain in the guard, but that was all they dared to do.

“The blight of antimachinism has been allowed free rein long enough. It’s time to cut it off at the root and burn it, for once and for all.” Roland’s gaze raked the room. “I expect you gentlemen to see to it that it does not flourish in your respective spheres. If you have any other suggestions, now is the time to offer them.”

Rafe took a few moments to marshal his thoughts—how to tell the King that he had lost his mind?—but before he could speak, Tristan blurted out, “But—but, Father, maybe—maybe we ought to listen to what they’re saying! They may… you know… have a point!”

Roland spun on his heel, eyes wild and savage. His fist struck his palm with a crack. “Treason! That’s what they’re committing, and so does anyone else who supports them! Scorch it all, they’re going to kill us! Think about where we would be without the Machine. No water, no gas, no sewage, no food, no light nor heat! If they destroy our machines, we have no way of repairing them unless we send to Shimmer for mage-worked quartz, which will drain the treasury dry. Blackstone would run us over! This talk about jobs and wages? All cover for genocide. Pah!” Roland spat his contempt on the floor. Several persons recoiled, some nodded.

Rafe put a hand on Tristan’s shaking shoulder. The prince, ashy-grey, looked close to collapse. “I… I’m sorry, Father…” he managed through the sob in his voice, before it broke and he was left mouthing words with no breath behind them. Rafe squeezed his shoulder to steady him. “I… I won’t… I won’t…”

Roland stared cold-eyed and pitiless at his son, as if he weren’t seeing him at all. “You are young still, but not that young. No son of mine will ever say such things again.”

Tristan blinked back tears. “Yes, Father,” he whispered, hanging his head.

“If you please, Your Majesty.” Leo barreled his way to the front of the crowd, pulling all the stares to him. “We need to sweeten this whole debacle with some honey. The citizenry will be fearful if we start banging down doors in the middle of the night, like the Secret Fist. The comparison will be inevitable if you do this.” His eyes met Rafe’s for an instant:
You look after the son, I’ll deal with the father.

With a nod, Rafe steered the unresisting Tristan out the nearest doorway, as Roland, wary and weary, said, “I’m listening, Leo.”

They passed into the conservatory, a glass-domed chamber with a large fountain as its centerpiece. Plants grew in raised beds and huge pots, wicker chairs stood in nooks created by metal screens, and statues of past kings stared at their descendent with indifferent stone eyes.

“Did you hear, Rafe?” Tristan choked out, his eyes wet with unshed tears. “He… he…”

“Yes, I heard.” There had been no need for the king to chastise his heir so publicly, not to mention for a father to cut his son so cruelly. Rafe squeezed Tristan’s shoulder. “Look. The antimachinists aren’t the demons your father made them out to be. Most are misguided idealists, but you shouldn’t underestimate them, either. Misguided idealists are what destroyed Goldmoon and created Blackstone.” Rafe looked around for eavesdroppers and spoke low and fast. “Misguided idealists
and
inflexible rulers. The antimachinists do have a point, though they go about matters the wrong way.”

“Father… he said…” Tristan’s eyes were huge.

“All I’m saying is that you should think for yourself. You’ll be king someday. Make up your own mind. And if you’re going to explore antimachinist philosophy, do yourself a favor and read some real books, not the screed shrilled out by rabble-rousers on the street.” Rafe smiled a little. “And for Sel’s sake, be discreet.”

He gave Tristan’s shoulder another squeeze, and left him to the ministrations of his attendants who had just slunk in. Rafe smiled a little as Tristan told them to stop clucking as being hens didn’t suit them, and thought that perhaps Tristan would recover.

Now if only Uncle Leo could get Roland to soften his stance and mend matters with his son.

The four-storey warehouse had a deserted air, set as far back as it was from the river. It was not a handsome building, with its sooty brickwork and rusty metal roof. The other buildings gave it a wide berth, as if not wanting to get their elbows dirtied through contact with it.

It was close to Leaf by the time Rafe rapped at the padlocked door. He’d gotten up late and missed the trolley down to the river, thanks in a large part to not having spent his sleeping hours actually sleeping. After leaving Tristan, he’d been accosted by the queen who’d fixed him with a steely eye and demanded to know why her son had been out walking the streets during the Hour of the Dead. That had been followed by a terse conversation with Leo (“Roland’s out of his mind, but since Judge Havers is writing out all those warrants, tell him you want a search warrant for that warehouse of Rocquespur’s”) and a long wait outside Havers’ office.

The judge had been roused out of his bed, but had still found time to put on his red robe, chain of office, and tall tasseled hat. The hat was askew and the judge had neglected to change out of his slippers in the confusion. But he wrote warrants as if he were a machine and silent minions waited at his elbow to whisk each one away, still-wet ink glistening. Rafe barely explained what he wanted before the judge was scrawling away furiously. When Rafe got home about Mold, he had in his pocket a warrant authorizing him to search and seize any questionable goods in the warehouse.

Except there seemed to be no one around to let him in so he could get on with his searching and seizing. No guards. No workers. No interested loiterers wandering over, no loaders hanging around looking for work. A few lights illuminated the pavement outside, but the warehouse itself was dark and vacant-eyed. Rafe peered in through a window, but there was nothing to see beyond the thick bubble-filled glass.

Rafe poked at the lock on a door so thick and sturdy that it might as well have been the city gate, then circled the building. A ramp led up from the canal to a loading bay at the back. Wavelets slapped against stone stairs cut into the ground beside the ramp.

And right next to the massive closed doors of the loading area was a smaller regular-sized door. Hidden by shadows, Rafe worked the padlock with a pick until it clicked open. He pulled back the bolt, opened the door, and just missed tripping over stone stairs going up. Rafe kept his fingertips against the sandpapery brick wall as he eased up the stairs in a thick darkness.

Scritch… scritch.

Rafe froze, straining with all his senses. A ripple of half-fear, half-thrill went down his back.

Silence settled around him in gentle musty-smelling drifts. The smells of shut-up grain and oiled wool lingered like old relatives. At the top of the stairs Rafe found an unlit lamp in a metal bracket, with a stub of a paraffin candle in it. Once lit, it was just bright enough to let Rafe know he was in a cavernous space full of vast shelves, stacks of boxes, and pallets in the middle of the floor. No doubt they were all mostly common things, but the small light turned them into storybook monsters. Rafe felt along a metal counter running the length of the wall for another lantern—surely there must be more lighting in here!—and tripped on something just as the front door screeched open.

He half-fell, grabbing the table with one hand while his knee struck something with a thump of flesh meeting flesh. The lantern swung wildly and the flame twisted.

A bright mage-light blossomed from the open doorway, and Rafe turned his face away from it. A raspy voice spoke. “Well, well. Young Grenfeld. Why am I not surprised to find you poking about in here?”

Rafe put his unneeded lantern on the table. “Because you’ve been engaged in illegal activities and it was only a matter of time before the law caught up to you, Rocquespur.”

The beacon moved from Rafe’s eyes to the floor. “I see,” drawled the Marquis, “that we have a problem.”

Rafe looked down into a face that, despite the horrible grimace and unnaturally wide eyes, he recognized. Pyotr, the shop owner from Blackstone, dead in an Oakhaven warehouse. “Yes, Rocquespur, we do,” he said grimly. “Perhaps you can tell me why there’s a Blackstone informer dead in your warehouse?”