The Madness Project (The Madness Method) (33 page)

“You’re not that special,” the mousy girl said.  “What can
you do anyway?”

“Oh.”  I smiled, turning my face just enough that I knew the
daylight caught on the white lines of my mark.  “You have no idea what I can
do.” 

She stared at me, pale, her grey eyes wide.

A little voice in the back of my mind screamed at me; I
couldn’t bear it; I couldn’t endure the deception.  So I gave the girls a mock
bow and, without another word, strode toward the long avenue that led to the
palace gates.  I wanted to look back.  Stars, just one glance, to see what they
were doing.  To see if they were whispering, or staring, or if they’d already forgotten
me and were carrying on as if nothing had happened.  But I didn’t.  I kept
walking, and didn’t stop till I’d reached the south streets.

Chapter 12 — Hayli

I couldn’t say how Rivano found me, sitting out on the wall
by the chicken-wire park.  Maybe Jig had gone and fetched him, or maybe he’d
just known like some kind of Knack that I had a notion to talk to him.  But one
minute I’d been sitting in the cold grey wind, staring at the treetops, the
next Rivano stood next to me like a pillar of fire.  I tried not to jump when I
noticed him.

“Are you doing better these days, Hayli?” he asked, when a
few long minutes ticked past.

“Suppose so,” I said.  “I still got no ken what happened to
me, though.”

Rivano sighed and planted his hands on the rough stone of
the wall, his dark gaze fixed on the park like he wasn’t quite seeing it. 
“I’ve been hearing rumors about this kind of thing happening.  Mages getting
abducted and waking up with no recollection of what happened to them.  Some
mages disappear and we never see them again.”

“You’ve lost mages from your crew?” I asked, a bit
horrified.

“No, fortunately.  But I know a Flint went missing some
months back, and before that a Shard.  Quite a fine one, too.”

“You think they got taken off to that same place?”

He studied me quietly, like he couldn’t quite figure out
what I was.  “I’m not sure.  I’d like to know more about it.  Can you tell me
anything else about what happened?  Anything at all?”

“I just remember the room was white.  Everything in it was
white.  It scared the blazes out of me,” I said.  “How could they have found
me?  I was a blithering
bird!
”

“The place where they found you.  Have you ever woken up
there before?” he asked.

“No.  Never.”

“Maybe they happened on you by accident.  Perhaps you followed
someone there?”

“Why would I’ve done that?” I asked. 

He tipped his head, almost like a shrug.  “I’m not sure.”

“Well, if I did, I dan’ remember it,” I said, scowling.

“Do you think you might be able to find your way back?”

“No!” I cried, more panicky than I meant.  “I mean, I was
completely conked when they took me there, and again when they threw me back
out.”

“Crows are some of the most intelligent animals in the
world,” he said, his eyes flickering.  “Would the crow be able to find it? 
This is important, Hayli.  This could change everything.”

I sighed and leaned onto my knees, blushing a bit because
I’d never even thought about how wonderful the crow could be.  She’d always
just been a way for me to fly away, to be free, to forget. 

“I suppose I could try,” I said. 

The little pipes out in the park were coughing up their
sulphur stench again, but the wind batted it mostly away from us.  I cleared my
throat a bit and tried not to breathe too deep.  More than anything I wanted to
ask Rivano about Mavens and Aces, and how Jig had called mages “broken,” but I
wasn’t sure I had the nerve for it.

“How is your Shifting coming along, anyway?” Rivano asked,
before I could make up my mind.

“Oh, swell,” I said.  “I think I’m starting to remember bits
of what happens when I Shift.”

“Excellent,” he said, and smiled.  “As I said, crows are
fantastically intelligent.  Do you know, some of the palace boffins have shown
that crows can recognize different humans, and that they can even use tools? 
Perhaps those would be helpful qualities for you.”

“I never knew that,” I murmured.

“Kantian will let me start bringing you on a bit more to
help us, if you’re interested.”

I stared at him.  A cascade of all kinds of feelings poured
over me, until I didn’t know what I felt or what I wanted.  It got me scowling
a bit, which probably made Rivano think I wasn’t keen on it, but if he did, he
didn’t show it.

“I think so,” I said.  “At least…I’m not quite sure what I
think.  Would I have to leave the Hole?  Live over in the east wing?”

“If it pleases you.”

“All my friends are in the Hole,” I whispered.

That caught me a bit surprised, because for so many years
I’d never been able to say that.  I’d had Pika, who didn’t know any better, and
Coins and Derrin who’d always looked after me, but that was all.  Now…even the
thought of never seeing Jig and Anuk got me feeling a bit saddish.

“You would still be in the same building,” Rivano said, but
I knew better, because I rarely saw any of his mages or any of the other Clan
members for that matter.  “Well, think it over.  You don’t have to decide just
yet.”

He turned as if to go, so I balled up all my courage and
said, “Wait!  I need to ask you something.”  When he just paused and studied me
expectantly, I swallowed and said, “Jig said you call some of the mages
broken.  What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Some,” he said.  “Not all.  Usually having one gift is
perfectly safe, but having more than one… Well.  That can become a bit
dangerous.  You see, having a gift of magic is rather like having an imprint on
the soul.  But something can only be imprinted once, so, for a soul to receive
more than one gift, it must…fracture.  And it fractures once for every gift.”

“But there’s only Mavens and Aces, right?  Three is the
most?”

“I’ve heard legend…well, it’s only legend.  As far as I
know, yes, three is the most that a mage can usually survive, and Aces are
often…not the healthiest of people.  Each fracture amplifies the soul’s power,
but takes it a little farther from its sanity.  The price for such power is the
mage’s humanity.”  Rivano turned to me, his eyes brilliant.  “But what a
price.  Humanity, to become a god.”

I shivered, and wanted to draw away, but I couldn’t. 
“That’s not what I think of when I think of God,” I said.  “That sounds a bit
wrong to me.  Dangerous.”

“So it is,” he said, sighing.  “It’s the age-old dream,
though, is it not?  And there is something admirable in the desire, even if it
does verge on the perilous.  Just imagine, Hayli.  Someone with enough power
could change the world.  Could save the world from all this madness.”

I frowned.  Derrin had talked about that before, too, how
the world was going mad.  I never felt quite as young and ignorant as when he
went chunnering off on that notion, because I’d never seen more of the world
than the streets of Brinmark and the stories of the Herald, most of which I
could never make horns or heads of, anyway.  And for all that, for all that I
knew mages were in trouble in the city, and the poor were poorer than ever, and
steam cars and aeroplanes and other monstrous machines I’d never dreamed of
were prowling about the palace grounds, I couldn’t understand what the madness
was.  I didn’t know why Derrin and Rivano seemed so spooked.

“Jig said he wants to join the Clan,” I blurted.  “What’d
you tell him to make him decide that?”

He laughed.  “I didn’t
tell
him anything.  He comes
now and then to our rites.  I suppose he has found the meaning and comfort in
them that the rest of us have.”  He started to walk away, but glanced at me
over his shoulder with a smile.  “You should come with him some time.”

I watched him walk away, murmuring to myself, “Maybe so.”

Chapter 13 — Tarik

I found my way to South Brinmark Station, hoping to use it
as an anchor point to find my way back to the Hole.  I had a fairly good head
for directions, once I knew where I was starting from, and so, though I’d only
been to the Station a handful of times in my life, it felt more familiar to me
than the rest of the streets. 

The massive brick building had once been the pride of my
city, with its glass-arched roof and splendid steam engines.  Lately it had
fallen on harder times, as the streets around it shifted to disrepute.  Some of
the windows were cracked; grime and soot painted strips of the red bricks
black.  It was still the waypoint for half a dozen destinations in Cavnal, so a
heavy detail of police patrolled the platforms and bays to protect the
well-to-do travelers from the loiterers looking for a handout or a pocket to
pick.

I stood across the street from the Station, watching a steam
train smoking across the green fields toward Brinmark, whistle blowing and
gears churning.  Half a dozen tracks found their way into the Station, while
another handful of lines for freight trains made lacework of the rail yard
south of the building.  They lay closest to the river as it twisted eastward,
flanked by a row of bare, dark-trunked trees on a low embankment. 

After the passenger train pulled into the Station, I made my
way across all the tracks to the farthest line.  Up in the yard, a few freight
cars waited for an engine, their heavy doors slung open for last minute
inspections.

I stood in the middle of the track on a sodden plank and
stared at those cars, and for the thousandth time in my life, my heart ached
with the desire to jump into one of them and go wherever fate would take me. 
To get away.  Leave it all behind.  I wanted it now more than ever, with a
fierce and burning need like hunger.

I’d told Kor.  I’d told him where the Hole rats lived; I’d
told him the place they called home.  I’d betrayed them already.  And it wasn’t
even the worst betrayal, because I imagined my father’s investigators would
have found out that information soon enough anyway.  But my heart burned with
shame as though I’d sentenced them to death. 

How much worse would it get?

And still…the thing that frightened me more than anything
was how much I wanted to succeed.  To get the Bricks’ trust.  To find out the
name of the supplier.  To get into the Hole and solve all the mysteries.  To prove
Derrin wrong about me.  To prove my father wrong.  I wanted it more than I’d
ever wanted anything.  I imagined I wanted it enough that no price would be too
high to pay for it.  And I was afraid of what I might do.

“Saw you at the Hole, didn’t I?”

I jumped and turned.  A kid about my own age sat on the
embankment behind me, watching me.  He twirled a coin through his fingers, back
and forth, in a way that reminded me infuriatingly of Kor.

“Didn’t see
you
,” I said.  “How long have you been
there?”

He shrugged.  “Long as I have been, right?  Planning on
cutting town?” he asked, and nodded toward the freight cars.

“Not really.  Who are you, anyway?”

“The tag’s Coins,” he said, flipping the coin in his
fingers.

I rolled my eyes.  “I can’t imagine why.”

He grinned and tugged his hands through his mop of black
curls, spiriting away the coin as he did.

“You’re from the Hole but you’re not throwing punches at
me.  What’s that all about?” I asked.

He laughed, one long, drawn out
ha!
  “Yeah, so, I’m
not with Anuk’s crew, right?  Not a Meat.  Don’t do much of the old one-two,
y’know,” he said, miming a punch.

I eyed him sidelong.  The kid was even lankier than I ever
was as Tarik, half a head taller than me and all arms and legs and eyes.  It
didn’t surprise me that he wasn’t a Meat—though his honesty about it did.

“Tell me something, would you?” I asked.

He got to his feet and drifted a few steps toward me. 
“Maybe.”