The Gutter Prayer, page 4
And then, behind it, the first door starts to close, scraping along the floor. The Tallowman moves, lightning-fast, knife whipping out to cut at the arm of the woman in the outer crypt. The blow scrapes off armour hidden beneath her clothes. She gets the door shut, and now the Tallowman’s trapped in the narrow space between the two crypts.
It bounces back from one door to the other, slamming into each one, testing the strength of the person on the far side. The ghoul’s weaker, it decides, and starts pushing on that door. It hurls itself against the door again and again, but the ghoul holds firm.
The Tallowman’s flame dwindles, yellows, darkens. The stone doors are air-tight, it thinks with its last thought.
Then the flame goes out, and the Tallowman is just a wax statue, as lifeless as any other corpse in Gravehill.
“So it is what we choose to rescue from the burning house that matters. It is only in moments of crisis and despair that we reveal what we really value.”
Olmiah clasps his hands together and smiles at the congregation. It was, he thinks, one of his best sermons to date—topical, insightful, relevant, but carefully calibrated to be understandable by the mob. He only wishes that his superiors had been in the church to hear it—such things are always best experienced first-hand—but Bishop Ashur is off at some emergency civic meeting, and Seril is ministering at hospitals, so while his audience is scarcely diminished in size, its political sway is grievously diminished this morning. The Church of the Holy Beggar is one of the seven oldest Keeper churches in Guerdon, and thus supposedly one of most prestigious, but while all men may be equal in the eyes of the gods, here in the mortal realm things are more subtle and complex.
This sermon, with its political overtones and witty allusions to the previous day’s fire, would go down far better at the Church of St. Storm or the Church of the Holy Smith, or the golden chapel in the alchemists’ guildhall—which isn’t one of the seven but has a lot more influence. So Olmiah is told anyway, usually by his mother, whose knowledge of church hierarchy and politics bewilders him. At the very least, he can tell his mother about this sermon when it’s done.
His eyes scan the crowd beyond the line of flickering candles, and alight on a woman in the front row. Gods above and below, she’s beautiful! Young and slim, richly dressed, yellow hair glimmering in the candlelight, jewels glittering in her bosom, and, best of all, an expression of rapt attention. She’s transfixed by his words, her spirit lifted.
Who is she? Without being at all obvious about it, he directs his speech towards her, preaching and praying in her direction so he can admire her as he talks. She’s clearly the daughter of some wealthy aristocrat or guild master, although he can’t see any sigils that might indicate what family she comes from. Nor, to his surprise and concern, can he see any bodyguards or chaperones by her side. She’s there surrounded by the poor folk, a jewel in the mud, seemingly heedless of the criminals and beggars that press on her from either side.
Clearly—and the thought strikes him with such clarity that he nearly loses his place in the litany—she is a young woman of such burning, passionate faith that she sought out his church. She endures the stench and filth of the commons, of those beneath her, in order to hear the words of the charismatic young priest whose reputation has clearly spread beyond the walls of the Holy Beggar to whatever glittering palace this beauty calls home. But oh!—she is in peril, terrible peril. Her spirit is so bright, her soul so pure, that she has walked into this den of corruption without realising the danger. There are alleyways not two minutes’ walk from this church that Olmiah himself is scared to go down alone. What must it be like for this beautiful girl, so slim and delicate? Why, the instant she leaves the protection of his church, she’ll surely be assailed by brutes, stripped of her finery, her nakedness revealed to the world. Their rough peasant hands will tear at her dress, ripping it away from her legs, her breasts.
Olmiah loses his place in the litany again. His voice is no longer a clarion trumpet of faith, but a tortured squeak. The congregation breaks into laughter—all except the woman, who smiles encouragingly. Even, dare he say, lovingly.
The church bell rings, throwing him off even more. Olmiah frowns, wondering if some filthy urchin has crept into the bell tower and started playing with the ropes, but he realises that his sermon waxed somewhat longer than it should have, and the noon hour is upon them. The bell-ringer of the Holy Beggar is blind and half deaf. His employment, like many others in this parish, is an act of charity, so Olmiah must forgive him for interrupting.
“Let us bow our heads in prayer!” shouts Olmiah, grateful for the brief respite that he can use to find his voice and place again. Fifty heads bow down—all except the girl, who defiantly looks straight at him, a rebellious angel in microcosm.
Gods below, what a creature! Thoughts so impious that he would scarcely have believed himself capable of conceiving them gush through Olmiah’s mind.
Obviously she cannot be allowed to leave. It wouldn’t be safe. She must stay within the walls of the Holy Beggar until suitable transportation can be arranged. After the ceremony, he’ll bring her into his private quarters—insist on it, tell her that there are theological matters to discuss with her—and then he’ll send out for a carriage to take her home. Though it’s hard to find a carriage on market day, so she might have to wait for hours. Perhaps even overnight.
Like a drunk, he staggers to the end of the ceremony. It lacks the grace and conviction it possessed before he saw the girl, but she doesn’t seem to mind and the unwashed masses can’t tell the difference anyway. You could dress a donkey in gold cloth and teach it to bray in time with the litany, and they wouldn’t know the difference between it and Bishop Ashur.
He dismisses the congregation. They rise and flood out of the doors. First the sick ward, kept separated from the rest by blessed red ropes, plague sufferers, god-cursed veterans, Stone Men. Then the rest, the common folk of the Wash. It reminds Olmiah of the opening of a sluice gate that empties a pool, the muddy waters of the crowd swirling and churning before pouring into the river.
Leaving gold behind. She remains seated, eyes fixed on him, bright and beautiful.
He stumbles towards the angel. She rises to greet him. Without a word, she takes his hand, leads him back towards the private chambers at the back of the church. He fumbles with the door lock, feeling the heat of her body through his cassock.
It’s all going so much better than he expected. For a moment, he wishes his mother was here to see it. She won’t be able to sniff dismissively at him now!
The door opens. They step inside into the private darkness.
He turns to the girl to beg her name, but she’s not there anymore. She’s unfolded like a flower, all her beauty and wealth peeling away, unravelling, leaving only a tangle of chaos and hunger. He’s unravelling, too, strips of his skin detaching painlessly from his arm, his face, to fall into the whirling vortex of the Raveller. Nerves, muscle, bone follow, threads of cassock, too, glittering cloth-of-gold merging into the whirling chaos that is all that remains of the dress she wore.
The unravelling reaches his torso, his head. For an instant, his vision is impossibly elongated as she devours his eyes.
Then all he can think about, forever, is her. He understands, in that moment, that she too was a victim of the Raveller. Multiple victims, even—her beauty taken from one woman, her grace from another, her clothing from a third, her eyes from another, all knitted together. Now he adds his threads of existence to the Raveller’s collection, and in that he finds some measure of union with the girl.
The bells continue to ring, drowning out whatever noises he might be able to muster.
Spar watches Cari swim away from the little island. He steps to the very edge, to the precipice that drops away into the murky waters. He has learned to manage frustration and anger since succumbing to the plague, as it stole portions of his life, one by one. He knows that if Cari starts to drown, there is little that he can do to save her. If he plunges into the water, he’ll drown too and there’ll be two bodies in the lake instead of one. He watches helplessly from the edge. He doesn’t pray to any gods, but with all his soul he wills her to make it across.
She drops beneath the surface once, twice, choking on the slime, but with a final kick she reaches the gate. She grabs it one-handed and hauls herself up. Shouts out in the hall, then starts climbing.
Ever since becoming stone, he’d had a dread of heights, of falling. He grinds his fingers nervously as Cari clambers up the gate, using the bars as a ladder. She’s too short to reach the top of the wall, but she probes for handholds, for cracks in the mortar. She finds one, digs her fingers in, pulls herself up. Another foot closer to the top. Spar groans—at this distance, he can’t see the cracks, he can’t tell if she’s got a secure handhold or if it’s going to give way and let her fall.
She stops abruptly, her whole body freezing in place. “The young priest is dead,” says Cari. Her voice is distant, as if she’s reciting something learned by rote.
Then she falls backwards off the wall, and splashes into the mire, still in some sort of a trance.
Spar roars at her to wake up, to breathe, to grab onto the gate, but she sinks beneath the surface and vanishes. He bellows for whatever guards there might be in this strange prison.
Running footsteps, and figures appear at the gate. One’s the thief-taker, the man who so thoroughly beat Spar the night before—or however long ago it was; Spar realises that days could have passed while he was unconscious and drugged with that potent dose of alkahest.
“She’s in the water,” roars Spar, and points. The thief-taker has his hooked pole, and plunges it into the water, swirling it back and forth until it catches on Cari’s shirt. He hooks her and pulls her to the door, then lifts her out. She splutters, throws up brown slime, but she’s alive. The thief-taker carries her away, and another guard, a fat man, relocks the iron gate.
“Is she all right?”
No answer.
Spar is left alone again.
Hours pass. The sun vanishes behind rain clouds. He catches enough water in his hands, cupped like a stone basin, to slake his thirst, but he’s still ravenous. Older Stone Men, he’s heard, stop feeling hungry or full, and have to remember how long it’s been since they last ate, or they risk their stomachs petrifying or bursting.
He’s got nothing to eat, so he takes pleasure in his hunger. It’s a mark of pride that he’s still alive on the inside.
As dusk falls, the thief-taker returns. He unlocks the gate and pushes a small boat, a skiff, onto the water, then punts across the lake. When he’s close enough, he throws a sack to Spar.
“Thought you might be hungry.”
Spar doesn’t move. “Why don’t you join me? Plenty of room on my island for two.”
The thief-taker laughs. “I’m fine here on my little boat. Miss Thay is well, by the by.”
He doesn’t know that name. “Who?”
“The girl. Carillon.”
Spar knew Cari was short for Carillon, but she’d always been evasive about her family, and he didn’t pry. She was a runaway, he knew that much. Thay sounds distantly familiar, but he can’t place it.
“Interesting young woman,” continues the thief-taker, “but she’s not a thieves’ guild member, is she?”
Spar shrugs. “I hardly know her,” he lies.
“Oh, some would disagree with you,” says the Thief-taker, laughing at some private joke. “You met her through Heinreil, of course, and the brotherhood.”
Stony silence. It was Rat who introduced Cari to Spar—brought her to his door one night, sick and shivering like a stray kitten. But Spar’s not going to implicate Rat unless …
“You must have known the ghoul well, though. The third member of your little gang.”
Spar crosses his arms, and it’s like the stone door of a tomb slamming shut.
“Or were the ones who blew up the vault part of the gang, too?”
“I don’t know anything about that.” That much is true.
“Just a coincidence it happened at the same time as your break-in?” The thief-taker scoffs. “I think you’ve been set up, boy, and they’re counting on you being a noble fool to take the blame. Like I told Miss Thay, I don’t give two shits about you or the ghoul or her, or whatever you were doing in the Hall. I want Heinreil.”
“I don’t know anyone by that name. I do want a lawyer. It’s my right.”
The thief-taker sighs. “This was one of the first quarantine hospitals, before they sent your lot to the Isle of Statues. Shameful place. I don’t want to keep you here, but I don’t have a choice—not unless you give me Heinreil.”
“No.”
“Ah, I forgot. You’re Idge’s son, aren’t you? The great man himself, the hero who stole from the rich and gave to the poor. The man who didn’t talk. What happened to him? Remind me, what became of his courage and conviction?”
Spar doesn’t answer. Turns his back on the man.
“Well then.” The thief-taker reaches inside his jerkin, holds up a brass syringe, tipped with a steel needle big and thick enough to punch through the stony crust above Spar’s flesh. “How often do you need alkahest? You’re pretty far gone from the way you walk. Every week? Every five days? Probably more often if you’re cooped up in here, with shit to eat and no space to move.”
He dangles the syringe above the waters. “I can wait until your legs seize up. Wait until there’s nothing left of you but a mouth and eyes. I don’t even need eyes, really, I suppose. Just a tongue to give me a name.”
He throws the syringe onto Spar’s island. It clatters and bounces, but Spar snatches it up before it can roll off into the waters.
“My name’s Jere,” says the man. “I’m telling you that so you can thank me.”
Spar stands there, unmoving, the alkahest cupped like the precious thing it is in his left hand.
“All right,” says Jere, “we’ll see if you thank me next time. And you will, sooner or later. Don’t be a fool, lad. Your friend Cari’s no fool—and she’s not coming back here.”
CHAPTER THREE
My name’s Jere,” said the man, “I’m telling you that so you can thank me.”
Cari’s teeth chatter, she’s shaking like she never has before. She’s half drowned and soaked, but it’s not nearly drowning that scared her.
It was whatever caused it. Like something had reached in across the city and carried her mind away. The particulars of the vision are fading fast, like a dream forgotten on waking, but she remembers being inside a church, old and dark, and some horrible thing taking the young priest apart. It hadn’t felt real at the time, either. She’d seen things from every angle, from above and below and the sides. Maybe not seen. It felt like seeing at the time, but …
“I was a fly on all the walls,” she says to herself.
“You’re welcome.” Jere shakes his head in disbelief. “Here, before you freeze.” He drops a bundle of grey cloth in her lap.
“What’s this?”
“A change of clothes.” He sits down in the chair across the desk from her, and reclines, watching her, waiting for a show.
“Turn around,” she demands. She’s changed her clothes in public, been naked in front of strangers before, there’s no room for modesty on a small ship, but she’s not going to let this thief-taker win at everything.
“Turn my back on a girl who carries this?” he asks, and produces her knife, her treasured little dagger, from a pocket. The last time she saw it, it was going into her own shoulder, driven by the wax hands of the Tallowman. “You’ll get it back if you behave.”
“Well, you’ve got my knife now, and I haven’t, so turn your damn back.”
Jere laughs at that, spins his chair around. She wriggles out of her wet clothes, wincing at the pain in her shoulder. The bandage over the wound is soaked from within and without, the brown-green stains of the slime meeting the red-brown of dried blood. She unwraps the old bandage.
“I’ll need a new wound dressing,” she says.
“Someone else will see to that.”
The garment he’s given her is a grey robe, belted at the waist, like a monk’s habit. She’s seen other people in the city wearing them before. She pulls it on over her head, wriggles into it. It’s too big for her, but it’s warm and dry. There are undergarments, too, and a pair of sandals.
“Is there any food?” she asks.
“Someone else will see to that, too.”
“Thank you, Jere,” she says, mockingly.
He turns back to her. “Normally, a little sneak like you isn’t worth my time. You’re not even a citizen—they’d let the candle-makers have you, not that there’s enough of you to make a nightlight. But here’s the thing.”
He reaches into a desk drawer and pulls out a big leather-bound ledger. It’s just like the ones in the library in the House of Law. She saw hundreds of books identical to that one burn.
Jere notices her surprise. “It wasn’t in the archive. Strange thing—someone had consulted the book with your birth records in it the day before, so it was down at the reading room in the south wing, and so it survived. Like you, Carillon Thay.”
He flips the book open to a marked page.
“Born here in Guerdon twenty-three years ago. Father Aridon Thay, of those Thays. Mother unknown—normally, it’s the other way around, so we’ll assume the stork delivered you to the family mansion. If I’d known you were quality when I arrested you, I’d have put you in a nicer cell.”
“Give that one to Spar,” she suggests. “I like the water.”
“Clearly you do. I spent the morning asking about you, Miss Thay, when I should have been finding out who blew up the Tower of Law. Your family packs you off to an aunt out in the country as soon as they can. It seems you don’t like it there much—at twelve, you’re reported missing. Of course, the Thays have other things to worry about than one wayward daughter, what with them all being murdered.”
