The Rising (The Alchemy Wars) Read online

  They rode through the waves of heat wafting from the open door of a blacksmith’s shop. No snow dusted the cobbles here. A bald man with sinewy arms, and two lads who must have been his apprentices, hammered on a glowing iron bar in a rapid but steady choreography: one-two-three, tongs, flip, one-two-three… Oscar’s shop was the larger of the two smithies within the inner keep: The smoky hell-glow of two other forges backlit additional trios of Oscar’s employees committing similar abuses upon raw metal. Longchamp wished they could have conscripted some of Oscar’s men and women to man the walls; arms like those could swing a sledge and pick hard enough to give a Clakker pause. But smiths were among the few professions with total immunity to the lottery. Their skills were crucial during a siege, and Marseilles-in-the-West needed more smiths than it had.

  Between the smithies’ crash of hammers on anvils from sunrise to sunset, and the bells of Saint Jean constantly chiming the hours of the Divine Office day and night, it was a wonder anybody in the inner keep could string two thoughts together without getting lost. When the din receded to the point where they could converse again, Élodie said, “You chose me for your group.”

  “Did I?”

  “I assume you did, since I’m here now.”

  Though slightly nasal, her voice didn’t carry a tremor. He watched her gloved hands on the reins: no nervous ticks there, either. She wasn’t probing out of fear or anxiety about what they might find. She was genuinely confused.

  Longchamp said, “I’ve been a soldier longer than you’ve been a chandler’s daughter. I wouldn’t know how to act like a civilian if the king’s life depended on it. But you, ma jeune fille, are a different story.” They came to a plastic footbridge over one of the channels that supplied water for the fountains, the hydraulic pumps for the funicular, sanitary plumbing, and myriad other uses. Longchamp dismounted. The others followed his example, loosely looping their reins through the naked boughs of a pear tree.

  He continued, “And I need eyes for this, not fighters. We’re looking for a priest. Worst he could do is swing a rosary or splash us with holy water. So unless you’re the Devil in disguise and likely to burst shrieking into flames when that happens, your inexperience is immaterial. Now clamp your fucking gob holes, both of you.”

  His trio was the first to amble into the fountain courtyard. A crowd had already gathered at the base of the Porter’s Prayer, outside the funicular station. As usual a pair of uniformed guards were there to monitor the petitioners, but as per their orders they hadn’t shepherded the hopefuls into a line nor had they allowed any ascents yet. They caught his eye; Longchamp gave a surreptitious nod. Then he settled upon a cold bench under the longest of the three cloisters facing the garth. It put the large but winter-dormant fountain between him and the petitioners. The disused carpenter’s shop in the far corner of the quadrangle had been chained shut by royal decree.

  Élodie joined him without having to be told. He hoped they looked like a father and daughter or even an uncle and niece waiting on a petitioner. From his sack he pulled two needles and a skein of woolen yarn.

  The recent conscript slid a finger under the brim of her cloche, scratched her temple. “You made these hats.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Deeply entrenched muscle memory put his fingers into motion. His gaze flicked back and forth between the scarf in his lap and the civilians in the quadrangle. Nobody matched the bandaged priest’s description. Chrétien strolled into the quadrangle, munching on a slab of fried fish wrapped in wax paper and looking every inch like a groom straight from the stables. He’d found a satchel and had even daubed a bit of mud on his face. In general, the personages of the inner keep—nobles and courtiers, various highly regarded and prosperous tradesmen—attired themselves more brightly than their counterparts in the outer ring of the citadel. But Chrétien fit nicely among the petitioners. He joined the line, eating and looking bored.

  The quadrangle had been almost unrecognizable in the immediate aftermath of the military Clakker’s rampage. But the crushed funicular car had been cut up and hauled away, the tracks repaired, the shattered fountain recarved, the body parts sorted and given Christian burials. Today a plaque commemorating the victims of that massacre was the only overt sign that this had been a scene of carnage. But eyes that had witnessed the scene could still pick out hints of that terrible day: dark spots where blood had stippled the porous marble; divots in the stones where talon-toes had found purchase… The soft, steady click of the needles in Longchamp’s hands played a counterpoint to his memory of screams, the butcher-shop snick of blades through bone, the whir of bolas, the peculiar chime of a diamond-tipped pick striking alchemical brass.

  More petitioners joined the line. Jean-Marc, one of the men on petitioner duty, unshuttered the heliograph to flash a message up the Spire. Apparently he received an affirmative, because he ushered a man and woman into the funicular. The door clanged shut, and then the funicular ascended with the day’s first pair of petitioners. Still no sign of the mysterious priest.

  Élodie murmured, “You don’t look like you’re idly watching passersby, sir. I mean, um, uncle. You look like you’re strip-searching everybody you see.” In a more conversational tone of voice, she said, “You don’t seem the knitting type. How did that come about?”

  “Nuns have a saying about idle hands and the Devil’s playthings. They said it to me a few times.”

  “Were you a troublemaker in your youth… uncle?”

  “Like all good uncles, I was always exactly as you know me now. A godlike figure whom you revere and fear.” His needles clicked. More people joined the petitioners’ line. The cold metal of the funicular tracks squealed under the weight of the ascending car. “And for the purposes of your new vocation,” he added, “I always will be.”

  Élodie stiffened. With exaggerated deliberation she laid a hand on the tangle of yarn on the bench between them. Before she gave it a tug and unraveled a piece of scarf, he murmured, “Yes. I see him.”

  A single figure approached the head of the line. Rather than joining the tail, he went straight to Jean-Marc and Felix at the funicular and heliograph station. He wore a hat low over his brow. Its brim was wide enough to conceal any bandages, if there were any to conceal. The top two buttons of his overcoat were unfastened, deliberately displaying the clerical collar underneath. The gray in his eyebrows and lines in his face roughly bracketed his age—Longchamp put him somewhere between a hard-earned early fifties and an uneventful midsixties. Longchamp caught Chrétien’s eye, who returned the slightest nod. The fellow had a brief conversation with the guards. Longchamp couldn’t make out what they said, but the interaction was animated because snippets of voices reached him across the quadrangle. Based on the way his men reacted, and pointed to the line, it seemed the newcomer had tried to talk his way to the top of the queue. But they’d been ordered not to be swayed by pushy men of the cloth.

  They were adamant. The trembling newcomer shuffled past Chrétien, who ignored him, to the end of the queue. Aside from the occasional stamp of feet or breathing into gloves, it wasn’t so cold that folks shivered like the priest. Longchamp watched him struggle to get the agitation under control.

  Normally, if a priest needed to approach the king, he’d go through the bishop of Marseilles. But the old bishop had died of pneumonia during the previous siege, and then the pope had been murdered before the Holy See in Québec could appoint a successor. For months, turmoil had beset the Catholic hierarchy of the southern reaches of the Saint Lawrence. In such troubled times, a humble priest would have to bring business before the king like any civilian. Particularly if he were a recent arrival lacking personal connections with the local diocese.

  But then, if he were so Goddamned humble, why try to talk his way to the head of the queue?

  Longchamp laid his knitting aside. He stood, hiked his pack over his shoulder. The hafts of the pick and hammer clattered together like wooden chimes.

  “I’m suddenly feeling very
pious,” he said. “Let’s go find a man of the cloth.”

  Élodie rose to her feet. “Oh, no.”

  Somebody else had joined the line behind the priest. Longchamp blinked. It was Zacharie Chastain, Élodie’s father. The chandler who had tried to duck the conscription lottery.

  “You have to be fucking kidding me. What in all the hells is he doing here?”

  Élodie faced Longchamp, looking panicked. “I swear I knew nothing about this.”

  “Your family excels at being a pain in my ass. Are you certain you’re not part Dutch?”

  “I’ll go get him.”

  Longchamp grabbed her arm. “No. We’re here for the priest. If your da wants to act like a braying donkey before the king, let him.”

  They ambled around the fountain. Sergeant Chrétien saw them approaching; one hand slid into his satchel, probably where he’d stashed his truncheon. Longchamp silently prayed his career wouldn’t culminate in the beating of an innocent priest. How he’d hate to prove the nuns right.

  Another squeal, this one approaching rather than receding, announced the arrival of a funicular car from above, twin to the one that had just brought the first two petitioners atop the Spire. Three of the king’s servants emerged, carrying a bundle of bed linens, a tray, and the last crumbs of His Majesty’s breakfast.

  Élodie’s father saw them before the priest did. Longchamp quickened his stride. The chandler opened his mouth as if to call to his daughter. She shook her head, touching a finger to her lips.

  The man in the clerical collar turned just in time to see it.

  Frowning, he looked from her to the others in line, looking for the man she shushed. Instead he noticed Chrétien several spaces ahead, casually pulling from his satchel fourteen inches of maple cudgel. The priest turned again and saw Longchamp striding toward him.

  Longchamp was still halfway across the quadrangle when white limned the rabbit’s eyes as he realized he was cornered. Now the priest looked frantic, studying his surroundings. Looking for an escape.

  Goddamn it.

  Longchamp raised his arm in greeting. “Father Visser!”

  The priest froze, trembling, like a hare that had just felt the shadow of a hawk. Yes. This was the man Berenice had described in her letter.

  Longchamp grinned. See my big smile. My big friendly smile. Nothing to worry about here. I’m just somebody who is pleasantly surprised to see you. No need to bolt. No need to make a scene. We’re all so fucking friendly here, can’t you see?

  He said, “Is that really you, Father? Why, I haven’t seen you in years!”

  Now Élodie’s father noticed Longchamp, too. The chandler said, “Élodie, you won’t have to deal with the captain much longer. Once I speak to the king about this ridiculous conscription lottery we’ll be out of the guard before the end of the day—”

  Visser’s expression changed as he realized that Longchamp was no mere parishioner, no mere civilian. His face twisted into something between a scowl and a plea. The apprehension vanished from his eyes to be replaced by something glassy and hard.

  “No, please,” he moaned. His voice carried a peculiar warble, as though he struggled to suppress a seizure.

  Son of a pox-ridden whore.

  Longchamp crossed the last few yards almost at a trot. Still smiling, he laid a hand on Visser’s shoulder. Gently. “I’m so pleased to see you, Father. Don’t be embarrassed if you don’t remember me—”

  Zacharie turned to address Visser. “Father, have you been selected in the lottery, too?” To Longchamp, he spat, “You are shameless! Now you dare to go after priests?”

  Élodie said, “Father, quiet!” She meant her own father but the confusion stoked the wild look in Visser’s eyes.

  The chandler laid his hand on the priest’s other arm. “Don’t worry. The king will end this once he hears of the outrageous—”

  Visser laid his palms on their chests, as if blessing them. He crouched.

  Shoved.

  Next thing he knew, Longchamp was tumbling through the air while Élodie yelled, “Papa!”

  And then the screaming started.

  Longchamp’s pick ripped a furrow in the brown grass around the fountain as he skidded to a hard stop against the basin. His breastbone ached like he’d been kicked by a horse. He righted himself just in time to see the much smaller chandler ragdoll against a cloister column. Zacharie Chastain flopped to the ground, unmoving, arm folded behind him as though one shoulder had become a loose hinge.

  Longchamp launched into a sprint, yelling, “Everybody on that bastard, NOW!”

  Brandishing his truncheon, Sergeant Chrétien tossed the satchel aside. He fought upstream against the stampede of panicked petitioners, but the current battered him, slowed him. The two uniformed guards bellowed for people to clear out. They drew their own weapons and followed close on the sergeant’s heels, shoulder-checking people out of their path. Longchamp was vaguely aware of somebody close behind him, maybe Simon, and of a few other guards in civilian garb struggling against the throng.

  Visser turned to flee, but Élodie grabbed his wrist. God bless the foolish lamb; she was actually trying to apply her training, trying to be a lion, focusing on the enemy and not on her wounded parent, trying to put an armlock on the priest. But she was too green even to try this on a regular day with a regular miscreant. But this was not a regular day and Visser was not a regular scofflaw and she was the only person in arm’s reach of the priest.

  The taste of sour milk filled Longchamp’s mouth. We didn’t train her for this. “Chastain, get out of there!”

  Strong as she was, the priest knocked her aside as though her muscular arms were made of dandelion fluff. She gave a wordless yell of terror and surprise.

  She was strong for her size. But Visser was impossibly strong for a human being.

  Visser is not what he seems. So said Berenice. Then what is he?

  Longchamp crossed the garth at a dead run. The quadrangle seemed to stretch, elongating like streamers dribbling from a ladle of honey, keeping the melee out of reach. It was happening all over again. People were going to die in this square because the guards weren’t prepared. Because Longchamp hadn’t prepared them. And this time they didn’t carry glue guns or bolas or even hammers and picks. Those were weapons for fighting Clakkers, and surely they couldn’t be expected to bring such to bear for the capture of a single elderly priest? Surely?

  Chrétien wound up to smash the truncheon across the back of Visser’s head. The priest spun so quickly he became a blur—

  —(Jesus Christ and Holy Mother Mary and all the saints, he moved like a machine)—

  —and caught the weapon in his outstretched palm. There was a dull, meaty crack like the snap of bone, but he didn’t react. Visser yanked the baton from Chrétien’s grip. Élodie tackled the sergeant. Visser’s counterstrike cleaved the air a hairbreadth over their heads with an audible whir. In the same motion the priest released the baton to send it winging at Longchamp. Longchamp dove aside. The very tip clipped him, knocked him breathless. The deflected truncheon spun across the courtyard to smash against the fountain. The maple rod shattered into sawdust and shrapnel. A network of dark fractures spiderwebbed the plaster and marble.

  Longchamp ignored the burning in his chest. Crossed the last few yards. Spread his arms to grapple with the priest-thing. Visser crouched again. Longchamp hurled himself at the priest.

  And soared through empty air as the other man (man?) leaped a solid five yards to land atop the sloped roof of the empty funicular. His shoes—regular, ordinary shoes like any humble priest might wear—slipped on the icy metal. But Visser grabbed the edge with his unbroken hand to arrest his slide. Metal crumpled.

  Longchamp tucked and rolled. Still climbing to his feet, he thrust an outstretched arm at the heliograph pillar, bellowing, “Somebody get on the flasher! Tell ’em to lock down the Spire NOW!”

  Visser jumped from the funicular to the brise-soleil that shaded the Porter’s Pr
ayer. The frost-slick polymer resin jounced slightly under his weight, but it held. It was the same material as the stairs themselves. He lost his footing and for a fraction of a second it appeared he might fall back into the quadrangle at the base of the funicular. But Visser wedged the fingers of his broken hand into the mortar of the Spire and curled his other hand around the outer edge of the stairwell. He crouched in that posture, motionless, for a few seconds.

  Longchamp knew what it meant when a Clakker paused like that. It was calculating, finding the best path to its objective.

  “Sprayers and bolas, NOW!”

  Longchamp knew a pointless order when he gave one. They’d thought they’d be capturing a man. Not… whatever this so-called priest was. Visser looked like a man but moved like a Clakker. Would he give Last Rites to his victims?

  Having righted himself, Visser started to move. He scurried up the helical ribbon of scarlet polymer that ran all the way to the top of the Spire. And the king’s apartments. But the frosty plastic offered no purchase. Visser moved in a crouched crablike scramble atop the canopy, outside hand ready to snag the edge of the awning, inside hand ready to crush stone and crumble mortar. Any normal human would have found it an untenable posture after a few strides and agonizing after a dozen. But Visser ascended faster than a healthy man at a dead sprint.

  Chrétien, closest to the base of the stair, snatched a truncheon from one of the uniformed guards. He flung it at the figure scrambling atop the Porter’s Prayer. And an excellent throw it was. It whispered through the wintry air, spinning end over end, to impact Visser’s ankle with a wince-inducing crack. A blow like that should have felled anybody. But the thing in the priest body didn’t even slow.

  Somebody else tried the same thing, throwing a truncheon at the priest’s face in hope of stunning him. But the pointless maneuver missed.

  Visser’s ascent took him past the first curve of the spiral stair. He disappeared behind the base of the Spire. And when he made it to the top?