Dreamstrider (32 page)

Chapter Twenty-five

The new Stargazer headquarters, in a shunted-off portion of the Imperial catacombs, are certainly a step up from Retch’s old Bayside tunnel digs. Clearly the Incident didn’t set them back for long. Each chamber is more elaborately decorated than the one before, with shimmering golden mosaics and marble sarcophagi and altars ablaze with scented candles, although the scruffy, leather-clad guards do detract from the effect. Jorn binds Brandt’s and my hands and gags us, and escorts us through the fifth or so set of guardsmen.

Finally, we reach the wrought iron gates, framed in human skulls and flanked by stacks of femurs. Part of the original Imperial catacombs, or Adolphus’s own special touch? I doubt I want to know.

“Well, well, well.” A vicious smirk curves the first guard’s mouth. “Jornisander the Destroyer. Look at this, boys. I guess these catacombs have ghosts in them after all.”

I glance at the second guard, who’s watching Jorn like he might evaporate before his eyes. “Retch told us you were dead, or good as.”

“Nah, not dead, though he’s about to be. Who let
you
through?” the first guardsman asks. He sizes up Jorn, who, for all his considerable girth, only reaches this man’s nose. Does Adolphus breed them or what? If we had an army full of cast-off Stargazer muscle, maybe we wouldn’t be cowering under the press of Farthing and the Commandant right now.

“I understand your boss has a bounty on all three of our heads,” Jorn says. He spits into the canal and glowers right back at the guard, as if he’d spat in his face. “I’ll take my chances that I can spare one with two.”

The first guard snorts. “All right, Jornisander. It’s your head.” He pulls the pins holding the gruesome gate in place, and it swings open under its own grave weight.

The second guard, however, is still staring at Jorn with a twitch to his face. “A lot of folks believed in the Destroyers. A lot of folks gave their lives to continue the work your ilk began,” he says, looking Jorn square in the eye. “Was quite a blow to learn you were a stool for the Ministry after all.”

“Why give a damn about what I did, or didn’t do? The Destroyers were never about me. They were about justice.” Jorn shakes his head. “You don’t need me to fight for the Writ. To oppose the gangs. If they only fought for me, then they were fools.”

The guard puffs up his chest. “They’re fighting still. We—they’ll win freedom without your help!”

“Good.” Jorn grins, though there’s no warmth behind it. “As they should. And they should start with bastards like Retch, who let these Farthing monsters take over
our
city—”

“Shut your bloody mouth,” the first guard snaps at Jorn. “How about you wait outside, Tomas? You and I need to have a little chat.”

Tomas’s cheeks darken. “Y—yes. Sorry.”

But Jorn lowers his mouth toward Tomas’s ear as we pass, only for a second, before we follow the first guard through the gate.

Adolphus Retch’s lair is a vulgar twin to the Emperor’s—vaulted ceilings gilded in moss and water stains instead of gold. What it lacks in surface space, it more than makes up for with all the absurdly unnecessary bits of treasure crammed into the slots where the early aristocrats’ bones once lay. Glittering golden trinkets, stacks of pottery from the kingdom that preceded the Commandant’s Land of the Iron Winds, scrolls depicting Oneiros and Nightmare and the Farthing forests and the Itinerant Sea and the ivory-skinned tribesmen of the north. One sarcophagus has been refashioned as a massive bed, complete with a white-eyed concubine sprawled under a satin sheet. A shudder tears through me as we walk past her; I try not to consider the likelihood of my mother inhabiting some similar Lullaby-pacified fate. I know only that she secured protection for our corner of the tunnels, and I never questioned at what price.

Adolphus Retch, boss of the Stargazer gang, stands up from his jagged throne. He himself could pass for a distant relative to the Emperor, now that I look at him. Shorter and rounder, but with the same fired-clay look of a man who’ll down a shot of rye with you one minute and throw you in the bear cage the next. The already lazy smile on his moist lips swells up like a blister as he scans the unbelievable prize that just walked itself through his doors.

“Jornisander the Destroyer! Or is it Betrayer now? My least favorite bodyguard. And what were your names again? Barton and Olga?” He tucks his thumbs into his armpits. “Well, I’m sure they weren’t your real names anyhow.”

Jorn pushes Brandt and I onto the stairs leading to the altar; without our hands free to catch ourselves, we crumple onto the floor. Jorn’s boots are caked with sewage and slough as he treads before us. “When I left your service, I stayed out of the tunnels. Not once did I breach your territory. Call me a deserter if you like, but I’ve done you no harm.”

“No harm?” Retch erupts with laughter. “You mean aside from turning me against my best lieutenant and burning down the entire Stargazer warehouse? And how about the ensuing riot that ran me out of the Dockside tunnels? You’re as bloody harmless as a sewer roach, aren’t you!”

“And look at you now. King of the Imperial tunnels. Hard to see that as anything but a step up,” Jorn says.

“Mm. But you don’t know the price I paid for it.” Retch’s voice is thin as a rapier. I wrestle myself to a sitting position. He wants to speak of prices paid? My blood boils at the thought. He better not dare blame us for what he’s done—for selling all of Barstadt to the Farthingers.

“I know something of it.” Jorn sounds like he’s chewing marble. “Your steady buyers from Farthing, for a start.”

“Not your concern,” Retch responds, too coolly. He’s not rising to the bait. Brandt catches my eye, and I blink to give my consent. Dreamer, bless that boy for always knowing my thoughts! “Oh,” Retch continues, “by the way—if you think you’re going to trade these two in to clear your bounty, you’re going to be very disappointed. Boys?”

Two behemoth guardsmen flank Jorn. They’re too swift, even for him. Each snares one of his arms, and they fling him onto his back across a sarcophagus. Adolphus is on him like a scorpion, blade raised over Jorn’s sternum to strike.

“You’re right. I rebuilt my little chemical fiefdom from scratch. Mothwood and Lullaby—they sell well enough, I suppose, but here’s where the real money is to be made.”

Brandt’s foot hovers in front of him; he rolls it so gently onto the stone floor it’s like he’s giving it a kiss. The next foot follows suit. Stitch by stitch, he silently rises to standing, without even a pop of his knees. From my view at his back I see the rope dance free from one wrist—Jorn bound them with a trick knot—and he slips it inside the sleeve of the other.

In the corner behind the guards, a little slip of a shadow glides along the wall, small enough to have been just a flicker in the candle flame.

“Nightmare’s bile, they call it on the streets. Dash of used cleansing water and a wicked slurry of poison. You’ll wish you were stewing in Nightmare’s gut.”

Adolphus swipes the blade down Jorn’s chest. A shallow cut, but Jorn’s screams rattle the catacombs to their marrow. I don’t have time to contemplate why before Brandt flies onto Retch’s back, moving in one seamless motion as my unlaced bindings slither to the ground. Brandt hooks his rope bindings around Retch’s throat like he’s bridling a horse. “Guards!” Retch wheezes.

Tomas storms in, blade drawn. He looks at Retch and Brandt, then at Jorn and the guards holding him. “Is it true?” Tomas asks Retch. “You’ve let the Farthingers take control?”

“You’re just cattle to be sold,” Retch says. “What do you care who owns you?”

Tomas lunges at the guard, who drops Jorn and throws up an arm to block the stab. Tomas’s dagger flies across the room. But Tomas presses forward. He grapples with the other guard. They tumble to the floor, and with a swift punch, the other guard goes limp, unconscious beneath Tomas.

I run to Jorn’s side, but he’s flailing his arms like a sail ripped loose. Once I manage to pin his arms down, I see why. The wound itself is mild, but his veins are blackening around it, webbing across his ribcage. “What’s happening to him?”

Retch laughs, hoarse and wheezing as Brandt pulls the rope tighter. “He’s trapped in his nightmares now.”

Jorn jerks, twisting as if trying to evade countless blows. “You can fight them,” I plead with him. “Pray to the Dreamer. Think of a reason to fight…”

Adolphus cackles, straining against the rope at his throat. “Your Dreamer is a lie. He won’t help you. Your doom is coming—I can hear its wings, beating like a heart.”

“Don’t say another word except to answer our questions.” Brandt yanks the rope tighter; Sora scurries around him to bind Retch’s hands and legs.

Jorn’s eyes roll back into his head. Dreamer’s mercy, he’s not going to make it. Could I enter his consciousness with him, fight the nightmares for him? I thumb the vial at my throat. I’m running low—we weren’t able to grab reserves from the storage room in the main Ministry building before we left. I have to save it for Marez, if I can, but if it means helping Jorn …

“First question. What did you supply the Farthing spies with besides mothwood?” Brandt asks, holding firm on the rope.

“Connections.” Retch wheezes. “Information.”

He pulls tighter. “Too vague. What kind of information?”

“Nothing that’s any of your business.” Despite his purpling face, Retch manages a vicious grin.

I seize one of the fallen guard’s daggers and press the tip against Retch’s gut. “Everyone knows how you treat your enemies, and I’ve seen how you treat your friends. I have no problems plunging this into you if you’re not willing to cooperate.” I tilt my head to one side with a smile. I’ve spent too long on the other side of blades like this, from Marez and all the rest—it’s time we gained the advantage. “Don’t be fooled by my aristocratic friends. I’m from the tunnels. I’m not afraid to fight to survive.”

Retch’s eyes bulge dangerously from their sockets. “Fine, fine. They were after some artifacts.”

“You’ll have to do better,” Brandt growls. I press the knife harder against his gut.

A raw desperation gurgles in Retch’s throat. “All right! They were after Nightmare shards. To reassemble Nightmare’s heart. My—my smugglers have been hunting the shards for a while, and—”

“And you
gave
them that information?”

“Who cares? It’s just an old myth! Yes!” Retch slurps down a greedy breath. “There are five major ones. Lady Twyne smuggled one in from the northern colonies. The Commandant found one in one of his quarries; one belonged to Farthing pirates, and the fourth was in the monolith in the High Temple.”

What Kriza must have stolen last night at the High Temple. My heart sinks.

Brandt presses in. His knee plunges into Retch’s back now, grinding him into the corpse dust of the catacomb floors. “And where is the final shard?”

Retch’s words are a chopped, minced mess. “I—don’t—know!”

The rope squeaks as Brandt pulls it tighter. “You said five
major
ones.”

“That’s right. Rumor has it some of the aristocrats wear smaller shards in their faces.” Retch wheezes a dry laugh. “Now that they’ve got the five big ones, the Farthingers were going to … ‘dream’ the shards into Oneiros somehow. Don’t ask me how. Once they’ve reformed Nightmare’s heart in Oneiros, they can resurrect him and bind him to their will. But they need the blood of the Emperor and the Commandant to do it.”

“So that’s the binding ritual.” I groan. My hypothesis was right: they stole the papers from the empty cabinet in Hesse’s Oneiros home. The research he wanted me to destroy. “It doesn’t just reassemble Nightmare’s heart? It gives him control over Nightmare, too?”

“Oh, yes.” Retch laughs again. “A mighty weapon at our command. And there’s naught you can do.”

“Where are the Farthingers?”Brandt asks, digging the rope tighter. “Where are they doing this?”

“Restoration artisan shop. Borders the Palace Square. Not—not far from here.”

Brandt nods, satisfied. “Then we can start with that. Sora?”

Sora brings him a mothwood rag, and he shoves it into Retch’s mouth. Finally, Retch’s horrid noises stop as he falls unconscious, and Brandt sets to work tying him up. “We’ll bring him back to the Ministry, once it’s safe.”

But Jorn’s still convulsing, fighting the wretched nightmares. I smell his panic thick in the air; a cold sweat clings to his forehead. “Please,” I whisper, stroking his forehead. “Stay with us.”

The Lullaby! I plunge my hand into my coat and tear away the wax wrapper. Sugary nausea floods my nose, but I force myself to peel back Jorn’s lips and smear the wad of resin against his gums. His eyes cloud over, but his breathing flattens out; he ceases to struggle. He releases short, shallow breaths—stable ones.

“He lied,” a woman groans.

The woman in the bed. Dreamer’s mercy, I’d forgotten about her. We turn toward her as she dangles one wrist in the air with what must be the sum total of her will. She’s slender as a bird, with a halo of knotted blond hair shielding her face from our scrutiny.

“The final shard. I know where it is.” She draws a long, slow breath—savoring it, perhaps, as the first breath today that’s been truly hers, and not another part of her debt to Adolphus Retch. “The girls who work at the palace whisper about it. It’s the ruby in the Emperor’s forehead.”

“Bloody nightmares. Of course.” Brandt bashes his palm against his forehead. “So that’ll be their next target. And they have the whole Farthing army at their backs to take the palace.”

“We’ll stop them.” I stand up, letting my fingers unravel from Jorn’s, and walk over to the woman. She’s sunk back into the mattress with her glossy dove-gray stare, but I take her hand and force her fingers around some heavy gold coins. Once the lieutenants take their cut, it may only buy her a week’s worth of meat, but it has to be better than dreamlessly wallowing in this monster’s bed.

Sora dunks a rag into an ewer and presses it to Jorn’s brow. “Is it all right to wake him up, Liv?”

“No! No.” Plucking someone out of a forced dreamless state is always risky. “Damn. We need him to stay here until he wakes up.” At least he’s in a shallow dream, not vulnerable in Oneiros. I silently hope Nightmare’s legions are chasing Retch down in Oneiros as we speak.