Magwitch took Shadrak and Nils into his library, which was also his laboratory, dining room, and—judging by the stained and frayed mattress shoved under a work bench—bedroom. It stank of sweat and sulfur. Around the walls, floor-to-ceiling book cases were obscured by trestle tables piled with junk: retorts, alembics, crucibles—all of them smeared and stained, blackened with soot. There were melted-down candles, half-eaten cakes, stale wedges of cheese and crusts of bread. The ceiling was plastered with yellowish paper upon which had been drawn symbols and diagrams. There was writing, too, most of it Ancient Urddynoorian.
“What a dump,” Nils said, nose wrinkling in disdain. “No wonder you never used to let me in.”
Shadrak had been here before, but if it was possible, things had actually deteriorated. The same could be said for Magwitch himself, whose dandruff was a perpetual snowfall, and whose skin was raw in places, scaled with flakes in others. It didn’t help that the blood from his broken nose smeared the lower half his face.
“A mage and technician needs a lavatory,” Magwitch said. “An incubated envelopment.” He began to rummage through the clutter on the long table that ran down the center of the room—a dining table at one time, judging by the ornate claw-feet and the two padded chairs either side and one at each end. In among some colored glass bottles he located a spare pair of spectacles and handed Shadrak the goggles back.
“Bit blurry,” he said as he gingerly settled the glasses on his nose and blinked through the lenses. “Last year’s vision. Out of step, out of kilter. It’s quite invertebrating, as if I’ve salvaged a lost year of life.”
Magwitch took down a jar from a shelf and daubed some kind of poultice on his nose. When he’d finished, it looked like a growth of moss had sprouted in the middle of his face.
“That help?” Nils said.
“Indubiously.” Magwitch ran a finger over the furry green mass.
“All right,” Shadrak said. “Sit down and start talking.”
Magwitch began to pull out the chair at the head of the table then hesitated. “I’m being remorseful of my hospital. Nutrients, anyone? I have cake, Stygian tea…”
“Cake,” Nils said.
Shadrak rolled his eyes. Was Fargin really that stupid? Even if it wasn’t riddled with weevils and as hard as rock, there was no way he was eating anything Magwitch had to offer. Wizards were as tricky as poisoners: You never knew what ingredients they added, but you did know they were seldom good.
“Stygian?” Shadrak said. “You trying to be funny?”
“Ah, your employist,” Magwitch said. “I must say, I wept a little to learn you had fallen so far. Only a man disparate or devolved would treat with a Stygian. But alas, the tea is medicusinal. I’ve been taking it for years. Keeps the mind astringent, the body in prostitutional health.”
“I’ll just take the cake,” Nils said.
Magwitch grabbed a half-eaten muffin from a bookcase and passed it to him. Nils held it between thumb and forefinger, as if it were a soiled arse-rag.
“How’d you know?” Shadrak said. “About the Stygian. You got wizard eyes in Pellor?”
Magwitch scoffed. “Don’t be ribalderous. Do you have any idea of the force required for such a feat? Magic may well be the dream stuff of a sleeping god, but it’s not free access, you know. I mean, for one thing—”
“Ilesa?”
Magwitch sighed. “She has a phalange in every pie from here to the Perfect Peak. One advantage of being a shifter, I suppose: she can cover a lot of ground; but more than that, she put the Dybbuks back together, her original guild under Master Plaguewind—who was himself a Stygian. Did you know that?”
Shadrak had heard the rumor more times than he cared to remember. But it hadn’t stopped the bullets he’d riddled Plaguewind’s body with, nor the one he’d put through his skull.
The thing about the Dybbuks, why they’d been the toughest of the Night Hawks’ rivals to take down, was that they were rogue sorcerers as much as they were thieves and assassins. Plaguewind had been blindsided by his own lust for power and his willingness to trust just about anyone in his bid to control the guilds, even a triple-crossing scut-bucket like Albert the Poisoner. But with the right leadership, the Dybbuks could have been unstoppable. After the Night of the Guilds, when Shadrak had finally taken control, the Dybbuks who’d survived vanished. Ilesa must have known where to find them.
“So, what, they using magic to spy on the provinces?”
“Pah,” Magwitch said. “If I can’t do a thing, do you seriously think rogue sorcerers can?”
“Thought that’s what you were,” Nils said, staring wide-eyed with horror at the muffin as something wriggled out of it and plopped onto the floor.
“Not eating?” Magwitch said, snatching the muffin back and biting into it. In between chews he said, “I am not a rogue. A maverick, yes, but a rogue, definitively not. Just because the Academy and I have certain dispupopitizations about the rhapsody woven from Ancient tech and Cynocephalus seepage does not make me a rogue. Furthermore, I am a mage not a sorcerer. There is a difference, you know.”
Magwitch chewed on sullenly until he remembered to swallow. Licking his lips, he said, “Ilesa uses her shifting ability and her crew’s sorcery to gain loyalty.”
“Told you she’s good at what she does,” Nils said.
“Any twat could do what she’s done with the help of magic,” Shadrak said.
“Maybe it ain’t just magic,” Nils said. “I tell you, she’s got brains.”
“That what you call them?” Shadrak said. “Please don’t tell me you’ve got the hots for the bitch.”
The flush of Nils’s cheeks gave that one away. “Shog off,” he said. “What, you think I’m desperate?”
“Thought never even occurred to me.” Turning to Magwitch, Shadrak said, “Now, let me get this straight: your wizard eye is feeding information to Ilesa, who has the run of the unified guilds, right?”
Magwitch took another bite of muffin and nodded.
“And?”
“A mage needs multiple streams of residue, you know. Components don’t come cheap, and then there’s food and, uh, food.”
“Who else? The Senate?”
“No,” Nils said. “You really think he’s stupid enough to work for both the guilds and the Senate?”
“He used to,” Shadrak said. “Mind you, back then the guilds had an agreement with the politicians.”
“Till you killed the First Senator,” Magwitch said. “See, it isn’t my fault. I’m just maintaining an old traduction.”
“All right,” Shadrak said. “So, Ilesa knew I was going after Jankson Brau’s ring, but why’d she not send someone after it herself?” He looked at Nils.
“Not me,” Nils said. “I was sent by the Academy. Master Arecagen.”
Shadrak held his gaze for a long while, until he was sure the cretin wasn’t lying. You could always tell with a Fargin, by the quiver of the chin, the damp patch blooming over the crotch. He was just about to look away, when the realization hit him.
“No, no, no,” Shadrak said. He wasn’t thinking straight. It made no sense Ilesa knowing he was going after the ring and then doing nothing to stop him. He’d never planned on coming to New Londdyr. If Nils hadn’t stolen the ring from him, he’d have been back in Pellor, picking up a tidy sack of gold. Arecagen knew about the ring, and likely he knew by magical detection, because Jankson Brau had started trying to use it. But if Ilesa had eyes and ears at the Academy, like Nil suggested, it made sense she knew what Arecagen was after, and who he had sent. She obviously had no doubt Nils would be returning to his master once the job was done, and so she just sat back and waited till the eye alerted her. Thing was, had she got everything she wanted? Now that she knew Shadrak was back, would she come after him? The bitch had vowed to kill him, after what he’d done to Master Plaguewind.
Magwitch surreptitiously peeked at something up his coat sleeve. Shadrak didn’t miss it.
“What’s that?”
“Hmm?”
“What did you just look at?”
“What, this?” Magwitch pulled back his sleeve to reveal a leather bracelet with some kind of oval gem set into it. “Just jewelry. An affectation.”
Nils rubbed at his forearm, saw Shadrak noticing, and dropped his hand.
“You’re into jewelry now?” Shadrak said. He grabbed Magwitch’s wrist, took a closer look. The oval was a glass cover, beneath which was a circle of white with numbers around its diameter. There were two slender pointers attached to a central hub, one shorter than the other.” He raised an eyebrow at the mage. “Think carefully before your next words, Magwitch. What the shog is this thing? Magic?”
Magwitch’s eyes focused inward, as if he were hedging his bets. Finally, he said, “It’s a time piece. Ancient tech.”
A thump sounded from the rooftop.
Nils jumped. Still no wet patch on the front of his britches. “What was that?”
Shadrak already had a flintlock in hand as he backed toward the entrance hall. “Who are you expecting?”
“It wasn’t me,” Magwitch whined. “I’m just the provider. It’s not up to me how they use the information.”
“Who?” Shadrak said. “The Senate?” Last time they’d come for him, they’d sent psychers, creatures that locked on to your mind and never let go.
“I don’t think so,” Magwitch said. He rummaged through the junk on a trestle table till he found what he was looking for: a sphere of glass or crystal. “I furnished them each with one of these, a viewing crystal linked to the eye. There’s a delay before they see what mine sees.” He indicated a larger crystal sphere sticking up out of a pile of papers and scraps of food on the adjacent bench.
“So, you control the information?” Nils said.
“Mostly I just determine who sees it first. It’s all on account of how much they’re willing to pay. The Senate’s orb has the biggest delay—necessary fiscal cuts, so they’d have you believe. Ilesa’s is next. She thinks threats make up the shortfall.”
Another thud on the rooftop, followed by another. Footfalls. Extremely heavy.
“Who else?” Shadrak said, changing his mind about the front door and scanning the room for exits. He should have done that when he entered; that’s what he’d always done, an ingrained habit that had served him well. Change and you die, he’d always said. Well, for whatever reason—age or complacency or Kadee—he’d changed. The only thing was, it was a mystery how much, and how much it would cost him.
“There’s just the trap on the roof and the front door,” Magwitch said. “Any more modes of entrance and egrets and it would be hard to contain… certain things.” He glanced about, and Shadrak followed his gaze, expecting to see shadowy forms lurking in the corners, but there was nothing.
“It can’t be Ilesa,” Nils said. “She’s got the ring already.”
“If she knows I’m here,” Shadrak said, “she might send someone, maybe even come herself.”
“Maresmen,” Magwitch said.
“What?” The hunters of husks, the creatures of nightmare that crossed over the Farfall Mountains. “But they work for the Senate,” Shadrak said. “And besides, they’re based in Malfen.” He should know. He’d run afoul of them when he was trafficking husks across the border from Qlippoth.
“Yes and no,” Magwitch said.
Another thud on the roof, then silence. Magwitch waited a moment, then proceeded in a whisper.
“There’s a secret faction of Maresmen here in the city, answerable only to the Senate, but not entirely honest with them. Ostentatiously, their remit is to apprehend rogue Maresmen, like the one who’s shacked up with Ilesa.”
“Ilesa?”
“No time,” Magwitch said, glancing at his wrist again. “When they asked me for access to the eye a few years back, there was no mention of using it to spy on their own. They still have links to the Order in Malfen. They were looking for someone specific. ”
“The trafficking,” Shadrak said. “They still haven’t forgotten.” And not only that, he’d killed more than a few Maresmen in the process of getting away.
Something dark and wispy began to seep through the ceiling.
“Oh, this is bad,” Magwitch said. “They obviously don’t like you.”
The problem with Maresmen was that you never knew what you were getting. They were half-husk, half-human, hybrids of nightmare and flesh. It’s what made them so effective at hunting the demons that came over from Qlippoth. It’s what made them such dangerous foes, each one different, each with their own unique gifts and powers.
The wisps started to form into two booted feet. Above them, gaseous legs emerged into the room.
“The Ghost!” Magwitch said. “No blade can harm him, nor even your guns.”
Magwitch pulled open a cupboard under one of his work benches and climbed inside. “Flee!” he whispered. “The sequence to open the front door—”
“I know,” Shadrak said, already sprinting for the hallway. He’d seen Magwitch pull the levers, and that was all he needed. The somnificus clearly hadn’t damaged his perfect memory as much as he’d feared, which was all the excuse he needed not to quit smoking it.
He raced through the sequence, even as thundering footfalls came from the laboratory. “Ready,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at Nils as he pulled the last lever and the door inched open.
A dark shape loomed behind the lad: long coat, tall hat, features swirling in and out of reality. Eyes of piercing amber roved from Nils to Shadrak, locked on.
Nils touched his forearm again… and vanished into thin air.
The Maresman charged—
And Shadrak squeezed through the widening gap in the door then vaulted over the stair railing, cloak splaying out behind him, flapping and snapping in the wind. He rolled as he hit the ground, came up running, and never looked back.