Riverkeep (13 page)

“Mix,” said the girl, “an' no, I'm all right. Bit of a headache though—that smoke! Who're you?”

“I'm Remedie Cantwell. Wulliam and . . .
Mr.
Tillinghast saved me from an ursa.”

“'S impressive stuff,” said Mix, sharing a look with Wull. She turned to Tillinghast. “Homunculus, eh?
That
explains the blue skin.”

“Does it?” said Tillinghast. “I wouldn't know.”

“Whose heart've you got?”

“Boxer,” said Tillinghast proudly, “fittest man there ever was.”

“An' whose blood? The boxer's?”

“I . . . 'in't got blood, really. . . .”

“That doesn't make sense. Why've you got a heart if you got no blood?”

“Well, shall we get goin' then?” said Tillinghast, turning away. “Let me help you aboard, Miss Cantwell. . . .”

“Don't touch me, you rude man!” said Remedie, shaking off his hand.

“No, wait! Get out!” said Wull. “I'm not runnin' a bloody passenger service! I'm in a hurry, an' Pappa's missin'! Mix, you
snuck on an' even if you's helpin' with Pappa I need to move faster, so you might as well get out here. An', Miss Cantwell, I'm right glad I was able to help you out an' all, but I'm in a hurry an' can't be slowed down with the extra weight. I can't help that I needs
your
money,” he said, turning on Tillinghast, “so
we
are goin' nowhere till I find Pappa! He's still wanderin' around those woods, an' who knows what's happened to him? That ursa might still be around, so you've got to help me before we get on our way
.
”

“Well, that's rude,” said Mix.

“Wulliam,” said Tillinghast, “I'll help you find your old man, course I will. But d'you mean to say that you, protector o' this river, is goin' to leave a couple o' young women—one with a tiny little baby—here alone? It's the kind o' thing
I
would do, but—”

“The baby's not . . . it's not real,” said Wull. “It's made o' wood.”

“What?” said Tillinghast, looking at Remedie, who held the baby closer to her. “You mean we's been nearly killed an' had our hands bit off so's we could nobly protect a paperweight?”

“That's even ruder,” said Mix.

“His name is Bonn, and I don't care for him to be spoken about in that manner,” said Remedie.

Tillinghast rubbed his eyes. “Mibbe you's right,” he said, looking at Wull. “That's nutty.”

“Seems a bit rich comin' from a homunculus what's carryin' a mandrake in a sack,” said Mix.

“
Who's
carryin' a mandrake,” said Tillinghast, rounding on her. “An' I'll give you a right smack for lookin' through my pers'nal belongin's!”

“You've got a mandrake?” said Remedie. “Then what can you possibly have against my Bonn? Why, he's no different from a mandrake or even you, sir, when all's said and done.”

“It's not
my
mandrake! An' I's nothin' like that! I's quite the—”

“Will you all shut up?” shouted Wull. “I don't know what a mandrake is, an' I'm not askin'. I need to find Pappa now, so stop wastin' my time!”

He stormed off into the closed silence of the forest, stepping over the wrecked splinter of the one remaining oar, and walked for quite a long way through the unseeing fog of his anger before he realized he was completely, hopelessly lost.

“So, Mr. Ruby—”

“'S jus' Ruby,” said Ruby, his battered face white-wrapped with bandages. “Here—c'n you smell sour milk?”

“No, I can't,” said Rattell. He blinked away some water from the corners of his eyes. “Ruby, you believe that Mr. Tillinghast was in here tonight—with his
son
?”

Ruby nodded.

“'S what he said jus' before he nutted me. He said, ‘Tha's my son, you blaggard.' Din't he say that, Errol?”

A small man with a face like a boiled beet nodded. “Aye, 'e said that, Ruby.”

“He called me a blaggard an' everythin', an' that's mean,” said Ruby.

“It sure is, Ruby,” said Errol.

Rattell dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief. There
was
a smell of cheese, now he came to think about it. It seemed to have followed him from the coach.

“It seems very unlikely that this was Mr. Ti-Tillinghast's son, Ruby,” he said, “but it matters only that he was here.” He dabbed at his eyes again and took a deep breath. “Could you describe him to us?”

“Oh, sure, he was big, nearly big's me, an' well built, like, strong lookin'. He'd a stupid hat an' . . . an' . . . what else, Errol?”

“He carried 'n air o' wistful melancholy, Ruby,” said Errol, finishing his drink.

“Yeah,” said Ruby, “that.”

“I see,” said Rattell. He turned to Rigby.

“What color skin'd 'e have?” said Rigby.

“I dunno,” said Ruby.

“Azure,” said Errol. “No, more like . . . duck egg. Can I 'ave another drink?”

“Of course,” said Rattell. “Mr. Pent, if you wouldn't mind?”

Pent, his craggy face impassive as ever, grunted and walked to the bar. Errol beamed on his stool.

“Ruby,” said Rattell, “how would you like to see Mr. Tillinghast again?”

“I'd like it a lot,” said Ruby. “If I'd seen 'im comin', he'd never've got the better o' me. If I sees 'im again, I'll be ready an' I'll give 'im a proper kickin'.”

“Wonderful,” said Rattell. “It just so happens that m-my associates and I are looking for Mr. Tillinghast as well. Was he carrying anything with him? A bag of any kind?”

“I dunno,” said Ruby.

Rattell looked at Errol.

“He'd an 'essian sack o'er his shoulder when 'e left,” said Errol.

“He still has that which we seek!” said Rattell, shooting a glance at Rigby. “Ruby, I'd like for you to try and find Mr. Tillinghast. Ask around, prod into the dreary little co-corners of your world, and when you do find him, you can hurt him as much as you like. But don't kill him; it is for me to kill him! And you must ensure that his sack is returned to me, do you understand?”

“No,” said Ruby.

Rattell looked at Errol.

“Kick 'is head in, don't kill 'im, cut 'is knackers off, an' post 'em to Mr. Rattell 'ere,” said Errol.

“N-no!” said Rattell, wringing his hands. “Not his . . . the sack over his shoulder! It contains something of great va-value.”

“Oh,” said Ruby and Errol together.

Pent returned with two tankards of ale, which he placed on the table. The men lifted them and drank with grim, seasoned swiftness.

“Can you do that, Mr. Ruby?”

Ruby finished the ale, wiped his mouth, and nodded. “Sure,” he said. “C'n I get some money now?”

Rattell took out his purse, counted five coins into Ruby's palm.

“There's five ducats to start you off—if you do as I've asked, there'll be ten times that for you.”

“Oh,” said Ruby.

“'S another fifty ducats,” said Errol.

“Oh,”
said Ruby. “Right then. Said he was goin' down the coast, I heard.”

“Then that is where
we
shall go—I need
you
to ensure this is not a ruse on his part. You should go into the hills—start in the villages on the Crissle Road, ask for him there. He'll leave a trace wherever he's been; he won't be hard to track.”

Ruby held his coins tightly in his fist. His eyes gleamed. “What's 'e got in that bag? 'S it worth more'n fifty ducats?”

Rattell leaned toward him.

“It is a mandrake. Do you know what that is?”

Ruby looked at Errol, who shrugged.

“It's a magical plant grown from a hanged man's seed,” said Rattell. “Mandrakes are rumored to carry their . . . father's . . . person, or soul. Mr. Ti-Tillinghast has the last remaining mandrake grown from the spillage of a notorious criminal much beloved of my employer. That means the most d-dangerous people in the land are now bent on its recovery, making it perhaps the most valuable item currently in existence, if one measures value in the lives it may ultimately c-cost. Should you so much as
breathe
on it, Ruby, these people will obliterate you utterly—so I suggest you leave it to us.”

Ruby looked at Errol.

“Means they's scary sods an' they'll kill you, Ruby,” said Errol.

“Right,” said Ruby, then left the inn, Errol sloping at his heels.

“Nothin'll come of them lookin', Misser Rattell,” said Rigby.

“I know, but it can hardly hurt, can it? Another person looking for that sc-scarecrow is another chance we've got of
finding him. If it only costs me five ducats, I'm happy. Yes, I'm happy!”

Pent made a noise.

“Misser Pent says that'll be the last you see of your ducats, Misser Rattell.”

“And so what if it is?” shouted Rattell, striding past his looming henchmen and back toward the coach. “If he's going to the coast”—he flicked through the dossier of Tillinghast's history—“aha! Look, there, this ruin of a house is where he was born. . . . Not born—made! Gathered from the fields and knitted like a sock! He thinks he's being so clever, leading us here—but we're one step ahead of him now!”

“What about this boy 'e was with? 'Is son?”

“He has no son, you fool. He's got no . . . none of the . . . It doesn't matter what! If he escapes us, then Rosie will find out and I'll be buried in the foundations of some horrid building with you two lumps in the pillars beside me, dribbling in that
infuriating
manner for the rest of time!”

“Now, Misser Rattell,” said Rigby, looking at the shining black strip of the Danék, “you mustn't worry 'bout that. I reckon Misser Fettiplace changed his mind 'bout all that already.”

“And how would
you
know what ‘Mr. Fettiplace' is thinki—No!”

But Rigby's knife was already in Rattell's neck, sawing at
the back of his windpipe in patient strokes until, in a shower of crimson and torn flesh, his throat tore open.

The little man fell, crawling in agony, holding his neck together to snatch a desperate gasp with trapped, animal squeaks. Pent stood on Rattell's hands, watched the bubbles pop in his open wound, and waited until the breath left him completely.

“Sorry, Misser Rattell, 's jus' that ev'ry man's got 'is price, an' yours's been paid by Misser Fettiplace. I hopes it's a comfort to know it was more'n five ducats,” said Rigby, flipping Rattell's body over with the toe of his boot. He laughed and wiped the dagger on his greatcoat. “Right, let's get his—”

Pent made a noise in his ear. Rigby's eyes widened.

“Gods, don't . . .” he began, but Pent's knife was already hilt deep in Rigby's skull. The big man's eyes rolled upward into whiteness, water pouring unchecked down his cheeks, pooling in the bags of his eyes, and mixing with blood from his nose. He gasped, a thin wheeze that wound to nothing as his heart stopped beating and he slumped, lifeless, in Pent's hands.

Pent pulled back his dagger, the blade moving through bone with the shrill jerk of scraped cutlery, a whistle of purple blood following it into the freezing air. Rigby's body fell to the ground.

Pent removed the coffin-nail dagger and the witch balls
from Rigby's pockets, along with the money and the sharp little trinkets that were the tools of a henchman's trade, slipped the dossier of Tillinghast's life from Rattell's coat, and emptied the little man's wallet into his own.

He stood, swept the blood from his flat cheeks.

First, Ruby. With a few tugs of leather, he uncoupled Colonel Fettiplace's prize stallion from the coach and hopped into the saddle, his blade-lined coat tinkling softly.

Half an hour later came the rattle of five ducats hitting the coins in his pocket, and Pent was riding for the coast.

Seula: literally, “water dog.” An omnivorous, semi-aquatic, snub-snouted, fin-footed mammal common in all regions of the world. Hunted for their fur and blubber, they are considered vermin in townships dependent on the fish that even a small hurtle (defined as five or more seulas) can consume by the hundredweight, and so these peaceful creatures are often poisoned or shot on sight. Elsewhere, they are frequently woven into myth as water-dwellers who were once human; this is most likely due to their eyes, which change from gold in summer to pale blue in winter, and their immensely tactile and sensory whiskers, which give them a pleasant and anthropic face. Although they lack external ears, their other senses are acute—both on land and in water. And though largely docile, competing males use their advanced upper incisors in mating season to battle for rights to females.

—
Encyclopedia Grandalia
, University of Oracco Print House

Wull was surprised by how quickly his eyes had grown accustomed to the moonless gloom. In the hours he'd been walking—dragging his stumped feet over frozen ground and pushing aside thickets of green ice with his bruised wrist—he'd thought back to the days and nights in the bäta's stern, watching Pappa row, hot-wrapped with shirts of gut, tight in the skins of seula and elk, thinking himself cold.

Pappa was right—it hurt to breathe now. The cold was an iron clamp on his head, needling through his teeth into his gums, its agony buzzing around him like a fly swarm, an insistent haze in his face wherever he turned.

He had called to Pappa at first, then thought better of it. There could be scores of ursas around, and only one would be freshly wounded by Tillinghast's blows—the others would pounce on him without hesitation, and he wouldn't have an oar to buy himself time. So he'd walked and kept as keen an eye as the cold would allow, blinking through the ice crystals.

As he'd blundered away, he'd heard Tillinghast, Remedie, and Mix shouting his name, but he'd ignored them and plowed on through his rage. By the time the tempest of his mood had calmed, they were gone and he was lost, with no way of knowing even where the river was, no way of finding his way back to the bäta, and no moon to guide him.

And even if he
did
somehow find the bäta, he had no way of getting it moving with the ursa having shattered the
oars, no way of getting home, and no chance of making it to Canna Bay in time to save Pappa.

And Pappa was gone.

Could it really be just that morning that Mrs. Wurth had come to the boathouse?

Wull heaved his breath into the fabric of his collar and closed his eyes, walked without seeing, hands out, stump fingers grasping at the trees, his feet finding their own way through the roots.

He should have stayed at home. Choosing to abandon the river had been madness; he had let it freeze solid for the first time in more than a hundred years, and for what? So he could hand all their money to bradai, lose Pappa in the ursa-filled forest, and set the bäta to ruin on the riverbank?

Even in the cold, he felt the swollen heat of the bradai's cut, felt his heart beating through the meat of his face, fingers of pain spreading out into his body like the roots of a weed.

He had ruined everything.

Never get out the bäta,
Wull thought.
And what have I done?
Got out and kept going, that's what.

Through the trees he spotted a frozen puddle, huge, nearly a lake, its white surface ringed with pearlescent swoops of ice, its banks tufted by spiky shoots of winter grass. A heron picked its way across, pin legs flapping on the surface, wings tucked against its body.

“Gentlemen o' the river,” said Wull to himself.

The heron, hearing his muttered voice, darted its head and leaped into the air, a tangle of wing and limb that fumbled upward, leaving in its wake an emptiness that was more impenetrably silent and still than before.

Wull stumbled on, his boots falling sullenly forward, catching his body with each step. The weight in his head returned, his skull wobbling. He felt so heavy, every part of him slipping: flesh from bone, bone from joint, his eyes cold pebbles in his head.

He slumped to his knees.

Cold like this didn't kill painfully, he knew; it came as sleep, as a soft whisper that lulled you in peace. If he took off a layer and lay down he would feel the chill, but it would be quickly swaddled by a wave of comfort, of calm. . . .

He pawed at the fastenings of his coat, tugging at the buttons with fingers that could no longer move.

Then he spotted movement ahead, struggled upright—fell.

“Pappa?” he said. “Pappa, I'm sorry.”

The shape blurred—legs and feet.

“I'm sorry,” he said again.

Boots appeared before him. He stared at the detail in the leather and slow-blinked, eyes flickering.

“It's you,” he said.

“It's me,” said Mix, kneeling in front of him. “Oh, you don't look good, do you?”

Wull sighed. “How did you find me?” he said eventually.

She smiled. “We've been lookin' for you. Even after you told us to bugger off.”

“Thank you,” said Wull.

“Not a bother. C'mon. Let's head back.”

“I jus' need to find Pappa. He's been alone out here for hours. He'll freeze to death.”

“You're not goin' to find him lyin' on the deck then, are you?” said Mix, hoisting him to his feet. Wull caught his weight on his heels and blundered forward. “Are you hurt?”

“I'm fine, just achin' from the rowin'. . . . No wonder the damn thing was that heavy with four people in it. Nearly popped out my shoulders.”

“Be five people once Remedie comes on too,” said Mix, grinning. “A merry troop we'll make.”

“I can't . . . I can't take everyone,” said Wull. “I don't mean to leave anyone, but there's no room, an' I need to get to the coast as quick as I can.”

Mix turned. In the gloom of the woods, the white markings on her skin glowed faintly in the shadows of her collar: thin, elegant, repetitious lines—like the rings of a tree or the patterns of blown snow.

“What are they?” said Wull, pointing.

“Never you mind,” said Mix. She raised an eyebrow. “There's no way you'll leave us here.”

“An' how d'you know that?” said Wull. He coughed, tasted coppery blood.

“'Cause I've been out in cold like this before; it'll kill you so quietly you don't even know. Besides, you said I could come with you, an' that's final. Even the homunculus agrees—said you were even rubbish at stealin' food 'cause you were too decent an' honest. I don't think he meant it as a compliment, mind you.”

“Right,” said Wull, “so along with my other faults, I'm too honest. Great. An' his name's Tillinghast.”

“I know. I jus' like the word:
ho-mun-cu-lus
. An' I din't think you'd stick up for him. He your friend now? Is that it?”

“Hardly,” said Wull. “I don't have friends—I've got passengers.”

Mix jogged up alongside him, hopped over a log, and pointed. “An' no wonder, if you—Look, there he is!”

“Pappa!” shouted Wull. He ran forward, fell, and slid over the wet ground toward Pappa—slouched into the open trunk of a fallen tree, totally still, his skin bloodless with cold. Before him lay a red balgair, its neck broken and twisted, a thin, painful whine rasping from its bloodied mouth. Pappa was watching it dispassionately, his face empty and blank.

Wull looked at him, felt his stomach sink, and reached for the animal—gave its neck the final snap it needed to end its pain.

“Pappa! Sit up! Can you hear me? Can you hear me, Pappa?”

He lifted Pappa's wasted spindle body, felt with the memory of his skin the bulk he'd held in the forest outside the Bootmunch's cave, and let go a deep, painful sob.

“It that speaks,” said Pappa, his voice a whisper. “It that speaks . . .”

Wull almost laughed. “I'm here, Pappa! It's all right now. Here, have my coat.”

He fumbled at his buttons, then bit off his gloves, throwing them to the ground and wriggling free of his coat. Without it, the cold came as an assault, scalding him, but he wrapped Pappa tightly, leaned in close to the big, sunken face.

“It that speaks,” said Pappa again, and this time there was a note of weary affection in the voice, a recognition that lasted half a heartbeat, and Wull knelt before him and took his hand. Behind him, Mix picked up Wull's gloves and stood back.

“Pappa, do you know me?” said Wull, tears at the edges of his eyes. “Pappa, it's me, Wulliam. Wulliam. You named me that, do you remember? Pappa, it's me! Look at me! Please look at me!”

Pappa's eyes rolled in his head, untethered, like a doll's eyes. Wull shook him, tipped him forward.

“Pappa! Do you know it's me? Wulliam? I'm sorry
I've ruined everything. I'm so sorry. . . . The bäta and everything—I was trying to help you. . . .” Wull pressed his hands into the thin arms, pulling the frail threads of Pappa back to him. “I didn't know what else to do! I'm sorry, Pappa, please stay here with me!”

Pappa's head fell onto Wull's shoulder, and Wull held it there as the cold wrapped them both, his mind lost in a safe place where they'd been happy together, safe in the boathouse, safe in the bäta; when they laughed and floated on the summer currents and when Pappa would hold him tight in his safe bed.

“Wulliam,” whispered Pappa, soft as the wind, soft as a thought.

“Yes,” said Wull, holding him tighter, “I've got you here. I've got you. It's goin' to be all right. We can go home, I'll stay with you there, I'll stay with you always. I'm sorry. . . .”

Pappa went limp. Wull felt carefully for the rising of the thin rib cage, waited to feel Pappa's breath.

Pappa sighed.

“You've got no idea what happened to him?” said Mix softly.

A bohdan took him,
thought Wull.
It's living inside him and killing him slowly and I can see it happening.

“
No,” he said aloud after a moment. “He jus' wasn't the same once he came out the water.”

He put his arm around Pappa's waist and lifted him from the ground. Mix hurried forward, took Pappa's other arm, and turned him slightly.

“It's this way,” she said. “You keep goin' the way you were an' you'll end up hittin' the wrong coast.”

“Thank you,” said Wull again. They walked together, lifting Pappa over glassy pools of ice. “How scary are these people you're runnin' from?”

“Oh, proper scary. Like, glowin' eyes an' shadows scary.”

“Why did you steal from 'em then?”

“I told you!” said Mix, sliding over a smashed trunk and reaching back for Pappa's elbow. “I didn't mean to! It is possible to steal by accident, y'know. You never made a mistake in your life?”

Wull thought of the smashed shards of the whale oil bottle drifting downriver, of the oar that lay in ruined splinters on the bankside, and of the impossible distance that separated him from the safety of the boathouse.

“Yes,” he said.

“Well, then,” said Mix, “that was my mistake. One of 'em, anyway.”

“One of 'em?”

“Yup. We's all made a few, I reckon. 'S jus' livin', 'in't it?”

“I need to get to Canna Bay, Mix. I need the mormorach, for Pappa—look at him.”

“I know, but I'm tellin' you, even if you get there—”

“Don't tell me that. I don't need to hear it. I jus' need to get there, all right?”

“Sure. An' don't worry, I'll go with you.”

“But the extra weight . . .”

“An' what do I weigh?” said Mix. “Hardly a thing! I's not worried anyway—you're too good to leave us here, right out in the far end of nowhere.”

Wull sighed, a lump of air that stuck in his throat as he helped Pappa over a frozen puddle.

“I know,” he said.

Dawn shone pink against the sky, the furrowed clouds stretching out from the horizon, talons grabbing at Canna Bay, boiled purple in their troughs and black where they met the sea. Balanced silently at their focus on the horizon's edge raged a speck of shattering drama as the matchstick of another splintered mast tumbled into the brine.

Gilt Murdagh was perched languorously on the statue of Mother Demlass, his eyeglass resting on her basket of pickerel. At the base of the statue's marble plinth were strewn bow-tied pieces of wicker and seaflowers. To his left stood the
white tower of the lighthouse, its beam left to die as the fish crews had deserted the port, its guidance no longer required.

Murdagh's tongue worked over his teeth as he watched how the mormorach swirled, how it tore its way through the sail. He watched as it rose, leading with its buttressed face to smash through the hull, the seas around it threshed into foam by the sinking ship and the frantic strokes of men and women swimming for safety. The shining tip of his whalebone leg tapped idly on the stone of the Mother's bared feet.