Текст книги "The Broken Bell"

Автор книги: Frank Tuttle

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Frank Tuttle
The Broken Bell

Chapter One

Babysitting banshees is a nerve-wracking business.

And after a morning with Buttercup, my nerves were not only wracked but wrecked and possibly wreaked as well.

Buttercup is all of four feet tall. She weighs forty pounds soaking wet with a big rock in each hand. And despite what you’ve heard about banshees, there isn’t a mean bone in her tiny body.

But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t enjoy a bit of old-fashioned banshee mischief when Mama Hog and Gertriss are away and there’s no one but Uncle Markhat to play with.

Buttercup’s favorite game is to make that banshee hop-step that transports her from place to place without the trouble and fuss of walking through the space between her and, for instance, the top of my desk.

Hop, appear, giggle, hop. From desktop to floor and back again, all in the space of a blink, with my good black hat clutched in her tiny banshee hands.

“That’s my good hat, sweetie.” I put on my most winning talking-to-the-kids smile. Darla claims it looks more like a grimace, as though someone was stepping on my toes, but it’s the best I can do. “Let’s find something else to play with.”

Hop blur, hop blur. She went from floor to desktop, vanished, poked me in the small of my back and was gone when I turned.

Shoes came tap-tap-tapping right up to my door. Not men’s shoes, but female ones.

They stopped. The lady knocked. No hesitation, no furtiveness.

Buttercup appeared at my side. She put my hat in my hand and clung to my leg with what I fervently hoped was purely platonic fervor.

She might be tiny, and she might be a thousand years old, but I’m very nearly a married man I’m told.

“In the back. Get under the covers. Don’t make a sound ’til I come get you.”

Buttercup doesn’t speak much Kingdom, but she understands it well enough. She nodded once and was gone. I heard my bedsprings squeak through the door Buttercup hadn’t bothered to open.

I put my hat on the rack-right above the new tan raincoat Darla had left there the day before.

Funny. The hat was a gift from Darla too. I wondered how long it would be before my entire wardrobe was the product of Darla’s keen eye for my clothes.

The lady at my door knocked again. Three-leg Cat rose, arched his back and yawned silently before sauntering toward the door, eager to slip outside.

I forced a smile and obliged cat and woman.

Darla stood at my door, grinning. Three-leg dashed between her ankles, circling her once and issuing a rough loud purr before darting away at a three-legged gallop.

“Mama swears you’ve never risen before noon.” Darla’s brown eyes glinted. She was wearing something high-necked and purple, and the one hand I could see was wearing a silk glove. “Are you sure you’re decent at this unholy hour?”

I made a show of looking at my elegantly rumpled attire. “I seem to be clothed, though by whom I don’t recall. Do come in, Miss Tomas. And bring that picnic basket with you.”

Darla glided in, and the heavenly smells that wafted up from the basket she carried came with her.

The basket wound up on my desk while we greeted each other. Clever devil that I am, I managed to snag a sticky bun from the basket and bring it up and around Darla so that I had a bite ready when we finished the good morning kiss.

Darla turned and laughed and took a bite and then we sat.

I chewed and swallowed. The bun was hot and sweet and perfectly baked.

I took another bite and lifted an eyebrow.

“So, what brings you out with the wagons, Darla dearest?” I asked. “It’s so early the vampires haven’t taken to their crypts yet.”

One of the many things I like about Darla is her utter lack of pretense.

“I’m here to ply you with pastries and my feminine wiles. I want to hire you, Mister Markhat. I want you to find someone for me.”

I choked down my sticky bun. All the play was gone from her eyes, all the mirth from her voice. She had her hands in her lap and she was not smiling. I’d only seen her do this once before.

“Tell me.”

“My friend Tamar is getting married. I believe I’ve mentioned that? Big wedding, rich families, we need to get you a new suit because you’re my date?”

I nodded. I recalled the name, was fuzzy on the date, was secretly hoping against hope something would come up and I’d be spared the spectacle of watching a masked priest drone on about the holy state of matrimony.

I’d seen quite a bit of the state of matrimony lately. Its fickle nature kept my partner Gertriss and I in business. Holy wouldn’t be my first choice in describing anything matrimonial.

“Tamar’s intended is a man named Carris. Carris Lethway. You might know the name.”

I whistled. “Lethway as in the Lethways who have the big house up on the Hill?”

“The very same.”

“I’ll need a fancy suit.”

“I hope so. But we won’t be shopping for one today, dearest, because Carris has gone missing.”

I’m not as crass as many claim. I didn’t make cracks about runaway grooms and quick trips on fast horses to isolated villas down South.

“Missing.”

“His family claims he’s out West, on family business. That’s a lie, Markhat. Tamar would know. Carris wouldn’t have just left without a word this close to the wedding.”

I just nodded.

“They’re rich. Has the Watch gotten involved?”

“Tamar went to them. They went to the Lethways. They were told Carris was fine, that he was away on business. The family hinted that Carris changed his mind about marrying Tamar.”

“Could that be true?”

“No. It could not.” Darla looked me in the eye. “I’ve known Tamar for years. She’s neither deluded nor hysterical. Something has happened to Carris, or someone is keeping him away against his will. Will you bring him home? For me?”

“For you, my sweet, I’ll try.” I moved the picnic basket aside and brought a writing pad and a sharp pencil out of my desk.

“You know what I need. Names, dates, all of it.”

A tiny hand reached up, and a sticky bun vanished. Darla squealed and grabbed at the air and managed to snag Buttercup and haul her giggling onto her lap.

“Babysitting again?”

“It’s all I do these days.” I put pencil to paper while Darla tickled Buttercup. “Whenever you’re ready.”

It took a while, but I got it all. At one point, Buttercup put on my hat and imitated me stomping across the floor with her diminutive banshee hands clenched at her back. Darla doubled over in laughter.

I’m surrounded, I tell you, and there’s not a damned thing I can do about it.

Darla left for work. Buttercup curled up on my unmade bed for a nap moments after.

I put butt in chair, left my door propped open and watched Rannit amble past. I couldn’t chase down Darla’s Tamar’s groom until either Gertriss returned from staking out a certain door in a particular flat, or Mama Hog made it back from Elfways and her weekly breakfast with spook doctor Granny Knot.

The first one who returned, Mama or Gertriss, would have the pleasure of watching Buttercup for the rest of the day.

I listened to the banshee’s dainty snore and wondered for the thousandth time whether hiding her in plain sight was a clever plan or a doomed bit of foolishness. Not that we had much choice-it was either take her in, turn her out into the woods or let the likes of the Corpsemaster have her. Even Mama, no fan of anything that smacked of Elves or the Faery folk, wouldn’t consider any of the latter actions.

I was pondering, lost in thought, not dozing the least bit, and that’s why I didn’t see the three angry road apples until they were nearly over my threshold.

They weren’t city folk. Their clothes were homespun, handed down and patched and handed down again. There wasn’t a matched pair of boots on their feet. Those hats had been scraps of castoff leather not many years ago.

But it wasn’t their clothes that raised my hackles. No, it was the set of their bearded jaws and the squint of their stern eyes and the way the lead man holding the scrap of paper clenched in his fist looked as if he meant to choke it.

I knew those looks.

They were looking for trouble. Worse, they were looking for me.

I stood. Too late to close the door and lock it. They’d seen me, seen me see them and no locked door was going to stop them.

I keep a lead-weighted knocking stick under my desk. But after another look at the burly country muscles of those long, sunburnt arms and a brief wink of steel from under a shirt, I reached up and took my mighty sword Toadsticker from his hooks.

That didn’t stop them, but it did slow them.

I planted myself in my doorway. That would keep them facing me, at least for a moment.

“You gentlemen are walking with a definite air of purpose.”

They stopped, keeping a Toadsticker-length of space between us.

“We’re lookin’ for a finder’s outfit,” said the biggest. He was squat and bow-legged, with a face full of old pox scars and fetid breath that would have set Three-leg to gagging. “A finder named Markhat.”

I gave Toadsticker a casual twirl.

“And what might your business be with this finder named Markhat?”

The man’s piggy little eyes narrowed. I named him Piggy. His companions, two worthies I dubbed Cabbages and Sheep, who might have heard of soap but had never been formally introduced to a cake of it, shuffled and reddened.

“That’s fer us ’an him to ken.”

“Then start kenning. I’m Markhat. Whoa, you-”

I didn’t have time to say anything else. Piggy rushed me, Cabbages reached under his shirt for a knife and Sheep produced an iron shortsword.

I gave Piggy a solid whack under his chin with Toadsticker’s point. That snapped his head back and drew a little blood, and he backpedaled so fast he went down on his sturdy country ass. Cabbages got a kick in his groin, and I just slammed my door hard in Sheep’s face, yanked the door open again and dropped him with a blow to the head from the flat of Toadsticker’s blade.

Cabbages took to his heels and ran blind onto the street.

The thing about ogres and their manure carts is this-they don’t stop. Well, they do if they can and the whim strikes them, but this one couldn’t and didn’t. Cabbages went down squealing under its ogre-hewn oak and iron wheels. The ogre roared and dropped his handles and reached under the cart and yanked Cabbages out, feetfirst, before tossing his squealing, bloody bulk casually into the heap of refuse old Mr. Bull had just put out for the trashwagons.

Mr. Bull appeared from within his shoe repair shop and, by way of saying welcome to Rannit, he began beating the twitching Cabbages with his surprisingly sturdy broom.

Piggy found his feet. I knocked his knife away, shoved him down again and planted the sole of my good right boot directly on his windpipe.

I kept Toadsticker aimed at his little friend Sheep, who was facedown and moaning and showing no signs of anything more ambitious than a bit of profuse bleeding.

“Why don’t we start over?” I pressed down a bit, risked a glance over my shoulder to see if the ruckus had wakened Buttercup. If it had, she was staying out of sight. I thought of her asleep on my bed and pressed on Piggy’s throat just a little harder. “Here in thriving, cosmopolitan Rannit, we greet each other like civilized men, with a hearty ‘good morning, sir.’ Mr. Bull, you’re either going to break your broom or kill him-why don’t you go back inside.”

Mr. Bull cackled, gave Cabbages a savage kick to the head and doddered back into his shop.

“Now, let’s see if you’ve learned any manners, shall we?”

“You bastard.”

I let my boot take a few more breaths away.

“Tut, tut, little man. Assault and foul language. You’re never going to win Citizen of the Year, at this rate.”

I let him turn purple. Then I eased up. Let him gobble for air just long enough to keep him conscious.

“Who sent you?”

He cursed more, tried to spit in my eye, cussed when it fell back in his own. I laughed.

“We’ll see if you’d like to try that with the Watch.”

“Boy. Boy, what ’ere you doin’?”

Mama came bustling up, wheezing and puffing. She had her right hand in her ever-present burlap bag, and I’d bet good beer her hand was clutching that wicked meat cleaver she favors.

“These three worthies came to call on me, Mama,” I said. “They turned mean without so much as a hello. The cheek, can you fathom it?”

Mama glared. The man under my boot paled.

“You. You’s one of Efram Sprang’s boys, ain’t you? Don’t you lie to me, I’d know them Sprang bug-eyes any damned where.”

“Mama? You know this man?”

Piggy tried to speak. I cut him off.

“I knows his kinfolk. Don’t I, boy? Let him talk.”

I relented. Piggy sputtered and coughed. I took my boot off his neck but put Toadsticker’s point right at the base of his fat chin and let him feel it.

“Gilgad Sprang. I’m Gilgad Sprang.”

Mama snorted. “I knowed it. You Sprangs never was long on brains. You come all this way to start trouble, did ye?”

Gilgad, son of Efram, tried to rise. I put him flat on his back with a tiny thrust of Toadsticker’s bright steel.

“I haven’t told you to get up.”

Mama grunted. Her hand was still in her bag. “I reckon he barged in and came at ye, all fists and boots, is that it?”

“Knives and swords, Mama. Without so much as a good morning.”

Mama’s face darkened. “Knives, was it?” She spat. “Like I done said, these here Sprangs is dumber than the pigs they keep. What about them two?”

“We were never introduced. What about it, you? Those brothers, sons, or truly ugly daughters?”

“My boys. Gerlat. Polter. If they’ve been kilt, I swear, I’ll-”

“If they’ve been killed that’s your fault, turnip burglar. You, there. What’s your name?”

I spoke that to a kid who was watching from the sidewalk.

“Itchy. I ain’t with them.”

“I know. But if you want to earn a pair of coppers, go fetch the Watch. They’re probably two blocks north at that place that sells biscuits on the sidewalk.”

“Three coppers.”

“No coppers if you say another word. Scoot.”

He scooted. A crowd began to gather, and Piggy got red-faced and restless when the laughter started.

“You want to tell me why you and your brood pulled knives on me?”

“Go to Hell. Take that there witch-woman with ye.”

Mama cackled.

“Witch I ain’t, Gilgad Sprang. And that’s a bad piece of luck for you, and do you know why?” Mama leaned close and poked his bloody nose with her crooked forefinger. “A witch might be moved to show you some mercy. But not me. You is doomed, and all your kin, and ain’t no way past that now.”

And then she muttered a long string of nonsense words and shook a dried owl in Piggy’s face.

He shut up, something like fear showing in his piggy eyes. I watched a mob of street kids empty his sons’ pockets. Both seemed to be stirring and moaning a bit, and I let out a breath I’d been holding.

It was one thing to summon the Watch when you had three bloodied but breathing assailants to present. But even on Cambrit Street, corpses require a lot of explaining.

Whistles blew, and I heard the hurried clip-clop of Watch ponies and the rattle of a Watch wagon.

Mama gave the head of the Sprang household a good hard kick in the face before backing up a step.

“I’m leavin’. If’n you needs a witness, send ’em to my door.’

“Thanks, Mama. I’ll keep you out of it if I can.” Mama isn’t any more popular with the Watch than I am. Years ago she kneed a Watchman in the groin when he barged into her place looking for a street kid she was hiding in a barrel. Neither she nor the Watch was much on forgetting or forgiving.

“See me when you’re done, boy.”

The wagon rounded the corner. Mama trundled away, muttering.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” I said as four blue-capped Watchmen approached, wiping the remains of the breakfast I’d so rudely interrupted off of their thick wool shirts. “Let me tell you about the morning I’ve had.”

Chapter Two

I didn’t have to make the trip downtown to file an official complaint. Turns out half the neighborhood had seen the altercation, and in a rare display of civic mindedness, people had actually lined up to give their accounts to the Watch.

I attributed that more to Mama’s presence on the scene than to any affection for the neighborhood finder.

Even so, the evidence was clear-I had been the subject of an armed, unprovoked attack.

And so I was sitting in Mama’s tiny parlor, Buttercup at my feet, while the Sprangs were enjoying the dubious hospitality of Rannit’s least accommodating public house, the Old Ruth Gaol.

“And then the Watch left,” I said while Mama stirred that enormous black pot she always has on the boil in the back of the room. Today it stank of rotten eggs and burnt hair.

Mama sighed. “How long you reckon they’ll keep ’em locked up?”

“Hard to say. If they can pay the fine, maybe a couple of weeks. If they have to work it off, could be a couple of months.”

Mama grunted. “I was hopin’ it would be a mite longer than that.”

“Spill it, Mama. You knew that man. Bet you also know why he came looking for me.”

“He don’t care nothing for you, boy.”

“Gertriss, then?”

“I fears it.”

Damn. Gertriss had started to tell me once why she’d left Pot Lockney, the pastoral ancestral abode of Hog women since time began. We’d never finished that conversation. I’d never asked, assuming she’d finish the story when she was good and ready.

Now, though, I’d need to press for answers.

I started to speak, but Mama raised a bony finger to her lips and nodded toward Buttercup, who played with dolls at my feet.

I forget sometimes Buttercup is a centuries-old banshee who understands far more Kingdom than she chooses to speak.

“I need to know this, Mama.”

“Tried to tell you once, didn’t I? And as I recall you got all uppity about people needin’ their privacy.”

“That was before the Sprangs tried to carve out my kidneys.”

Mama stirred. “Well. From what I hears, and this is all third-hand mind ye, I reckon she kilt a man who-,” Mama hesitated, picking words carefully, “-who got determined with her. I ain’t got no use for a man what mistreats woman. No use at all.”

Whatever was in the pot threatened to come sloshing over the side. Mama cussed and slowed her stirring before continuing.

“Sounds to me like she did what she had to do.”

“There’s some what don’t see it that way.”

“These Sprangs. They his family?”

“That’s where it gets bothersome, boy. The man she kilt was a Suthom, from over Gobbler way. Ain’t no relation to the Sprangs.”

I frowned. Buttercup saw and handed me the doll she was cooing wordlessly to.

“Thanks, sweetie.” I took the doll by its hands and made it dance on my knee. “So why did these Sprangs come looking for Gertriss?”

“That Suthom boy she killed. Word is he had bought a big patch of farmland from the Sprangs. He was figurin’ on settin’ up with Gertriss there. Well, he paid them half, promised the rest. But she kilt him before he delivered. I reckon they figure she took the half of the money he was holdin’, and I reckon they wants it.”

I nearly forgot to keep the doll dancing.

“Whoa. They came all this way looking for Gertriss because they think she has half of the money a dead man promised them for a farm he’ll never live on?”

“You a city boy. Listen. That Suthom promised that there money to them Sprangs. In their way of thinking, Gertriss was his, and that means she promised it too. So he might be dead, but she ain’t, and by old law she still half-owns that patch of dirt and she owes them half that money.”

“You’ve got to be joking.”

“Them Sprangs look like they was jokin’, boy?”

“No. No, they didn’t.” I gave Buttercup’s dolly a big dance finish and handed it back to her. She clapped her hands and giggled and hugged me before scampering off to Mama’s back room.

“So if that’s all true, why jump me? They figure I owe them money too?”

Mama grumped and looked away, but I got a glimpse of her face before she turned, and I’ve been a resident of Cambrit Street long enough to recognize Mama’s many faces. I was seeing the rarest of all her faces-the guilty one.

“Mama.”

“Well, they must have got word Gertriss is workin’ for you now.”

“That isn’t reason to start carving on me, is it?”

Mama gave the contents of her pot a glare.

“I reckon word might have got around that she was a mite more than any ol’ employee.”

I groaned. I’d surmised that myself before she spoke the words.

I’d also surmised how the Sprangs, and everyone else in rural Pot Lockney, might have gotten those particular words.

“Why, Mama? Tell me that.”

“Boy, I didn’t think they’d come stomping to Rannit aimin’ to spill blood. I swears I didn’t. A man from the city? A man what knows city people, knows the Dark Houses by name?” She gave her potion a savage turn. “I reckoned them stump jumpers would stay put and let that damn land sit fallow for five seasons, and then it would be theirs and no trouble for us. You.”

“I hate to point out the obvious, Mama, but that isn’t the way things are turning out.”

“I knows it. I’m sorry, boy. But there’s something else a goin’ on here. Something I don’t know about.”

“Do tell.”

“But I aims to find it out. I aims to put it right.”

“I hope you aim to do that before the Watch cuts the Sprangs loose.” I shook my head and had a disturbing thought. “How many Sprangs are there, anyway, Mama? Are there are more of them out there, sharpening their knives and planning trips to Rannit?”

“I don’t know, boy. But I will be a findin’ out.”

“You know we’ll have to tell Gertriss.”

“I know. I’ll be the one.”

“I’ll come back around when I’m done with a bit of snooping. Don’t worry, Mama. She’ll be mad, but she’ll get over it.”

Mama shrugged, unconvinced. Her relations with her niece hadn’t been what Mama was hoping for. This incident wasn’t going to help, not one bit.

Kids. They grow up, whether anyone likes it or not.

I rose, waved goodbye to Buttercup, and headed for Mama’s door.

“Back before Curfew,” I said. “Better make sure you check the peephole before you open up.”

“I ain’t stupid, boy. And I ain’t likely to get bushwhacked by the likes of no Sprangs, neither.”

I bit back a retort and headed for the street.

My plan was to head downtown and pay Darla’s friend Tamar a visit. Darla would be hurt if I sent Gertriss instead, and even more hurt if I kept Tamar waiting all day.

That was my plan.

I had to change it when the Corpsemaster’s black carriage came rolling down my street.

People scattered. Doors and shutters slammed. Hell, the crows picking scraps off the street took to the air and flapped away, all business, without so much as a single harsh caw.

Fool me, the only one left standing when the horseless black carriage rolled to a buzzing halt.

The buzzing came from the cloud of flies that engulfed the accursed contrivance. The cabdriver was a dead man, who sat atop the carriage and grinned down at me from a face that was mostly skull. I wondered what small fault won him his place atop the black carriage.

He clacked his lipless teeth in greeting. I think he would have dismounted and opened the door for me had I not reached out and opened it myself.

There’s no point in denying Hisvin’s carriage.

Not unless you wish to wind up sitting atop it.

I clambered in.

Evis was there, wrapped in yards and yards of black silk and hiding his eyes behind the black lenses of those fancy spectacles the halfdead favor on their rare daytime excursions.

Seated across from him was a dead woman. She hadn’t been dead long. The undertaker’s rouge on her cheeks and the make-up on her hands lent her a nearly lifelike appearance.

“Good morning, Mr. Markhat,” she said. Her voice seemed natural, save for a slight slurring. Her gums behind her too-red lips were white. “I trust you won’t mind if I take up a portion of your day?”

I nodded a grim hello at Evis, unable to read his eyes behind the dark glasses.

“Always happy to be about the Regent’s business.”

The Corpsemaster laughed through the dead woman’s throat. “Well put, finder. I believe you know Mr. Prestley.”

“He’s in trouble too?”

She ignored me.

“There is a thing I wish to show both of you. I can, of course, count on your discretion afterward.”

She hadn’t spoken it as a question. The threat was clear enough.

I settled back into my seat. It was cushioned and it rode on springs to smooth out the potholes. Had it been any other seat in any other carriage I’d have been glad of the luxury.

“This thing-”

The dead woman raised a finger to her dry pursed lips.

“Nice seats in this carriage,” I finished.

The dead woman smiled. Evis rustled in his silks. I wasn’t sure he was awake. I hear the slumber of a halfdead is akin to a coma.

We rattled on. The dead cabman cracked his whip at horses that weren’t there, while a dead woman watched me through eyes gone flat and dry.

All in all, my day was off to a decidedly rocky start.

Evis began to snore.

I clasped my hands behind my head and leaned back into the Corpsemaster’s fancy carriage seat. If Evis was so unconcerned he could slumber, I wasn’t going to be seen fretting.

The Corpsemaster smiled.

“I should’ve brought a picnic basket,” she said. Her smile was so wide it cracked the thick undertaker’s rouge and let slivers of grey peek through at each dimple. “We’re going to have such fun.”

I didn’t ask. I didn’t dare.

I was getting sleepy. It was happening so quickly I almost didn’t notice it. My eyes drooped shut and I caught myself and opened them with a start, terrified at the prospect of dozing off across from Encorla Hisvin, sure that would be construed as a mortal insult to one who bore no insult, however slight.

My arms fell to my sides, heavy as wet sand, and suddenly just as useful.

“Sleep now,” whispered the dead woman. My vision was failing. She leaned forward toward me and stroked my cheek with fingers oh so cold. “Better if you sleep.”

I didn’t have words. Didn’t have the strength left to speak them.

“Sleep.”

I fought with everything I had. Lasted maybe another pair of heartbeats.

I hoped I wouldn’t dream.

Somebody had my right arm and was yanking on it.

“Wake up,” shouted a gruff voice, so close to my ear I could feel warm breath. “You’re too damned heavy to carry.”

The voice was male and unfamiliar. I managed to open my eyes about the time I went spilling out of Hisvin’s carriage and onto the cobblestones below.

An effort was made to catch me, but it was halfhearted and accompanied by a pair of loud guffaws.

I landed, rolled, stood. I would have punched someone in the gut had my eyes not been blinded by a sun that beamed down hot and bright.

“You’re awake. Good. Here’s some water. You’ll want it.”

A cold pitcher was pressed into my hand. I squinted about me, trying to arrange my most recent memories into some semblance of order so I’d know who to hit first.

“Drink it,” said a different voice. “The longer you wait the worse your head will hurt. The Corpsemaster’s naps aren’t the restful, healing kind.”

“Do tell,” I managed. My throat was so dry it came out in a rasp. I gave up on any plans for pugilistic retribution and drank.

The water was cold and clear. It tasted of peppermint and another herb I couldn’t name.

“I’m Piper. This is Lopside.”

I lowered the pitcher.

The sun wasn’t just hot and bright. It was far too hot, far too bright. And it was beaming down out of a sky so blue it appeared to have been freshly scrubbed and painted.

Hadn’t the sky been the color of old lead when I’d set foot in the Corpsemaster’s black carriage?

It was hot. Summer hot, dog days hot, not the milder early spring hot it should have been.

Chills made tiny footsteps up and down my spine. How long had I been in that damned carriage?

I mopped sweat. Felt my clothes stick to me. Hell, I was soaked.

My shadow was pooled and tiny at my feet, on cobblestones that made up a circle maybe twenty yards across. There were patterns set into the circle, formed by swoops and swirls of copper and lead that intersected and wove and parted and looped in ways that made my eyes water.

I thought at first the cobblestone circle was fenced at its perimeter. But as my eyes and head cleared, I could see that while the circle was bounded by a ring of waist-high stakes topped with ornaments of some kind. There was no fencing between them.

Beyond the circle was an endless plain of swaying green grass that flowed like a sea away in every direction. No trees. No walls. Not a hint of Rannit. Nothing but tall green grass rippling in the wind.

And no telltale sign of wagon-wheel ruts that might mark the long way home.

“What the Hell?”

Piper and Lopside snickered. “You all say that,” said Piper.

Piper was little more than a kid. His face still bore an enthusiastic crop of pimples. His Army uniform was too short at the ankles and the sleeves, which only accentuated his boyish appearance.

He wore plain Army dress blues. But the uniform, though familiar, wasn’t complete. His name wasn’t sewn over his chest. No unit identifier. There was no collar insignia, nothing to mark him as infantry or cavalry or sorcerer’s corps or Wagoner. He showed no sign of rank at all. The Sarge would have burst a vein at the sight of such a uniform.

“Would you mind waking your pal, Mr. Markhat?” asked the other man. “I’d rather not startle a halfdead, no disrespect intended, sir.”

Lopside was maybe my age. His uniform matched Piper’s, in that it didn’t tell me a damned thing.

“You didn’t seem to mind startling me.”

“Kids these days.” He rolled his eyes at Piper. “Maybe this will help. You’re a guest of the Corpsemaster. This place doesn’t have a name, because it doesn’t officially exist, but we call it the Battery. Everyone who comes here arrives asleep. You’ll leave the same way, get back home a few hours after you left. No, I don’t know where we are in relation to Rannit. No, I don’t know where the trees went. And no, I don’t know why it’s so damned hot. It’s been this way for eight months. You get used to it.”

I drank some more water.

“Fine. I’ll wake my friend. One question first.”

“I probably can’t answer it. But I’ll try.”

“You said everyone arrives asleep. Who is everyone? Who else comes here?”

“Can’t answer that.”

“Didn’t think so.” But it hadn’t hurt to try. I tossed him the pitcher and eased my way into the carriage.

“Evis,” I said. I poked him gently. “Wake up.”

He didn’t stir. He’d managed to cover his face in a fold of his cloak and I braced myself and yanked it back, exposing his pale face to the sun.