And so he began to half run, half stumble downward into the darkness.
Zeke didn’t have the lantern anymore, and he didn’t know what had become of it. The hustling retreat of Rudy beating a rambling flight was as noisy as the beating air and the banging ship that assaulted the walls. But when Zeke reached the stairs and the rocking blackness sought to undermine him, he fought it. And he began to climb up.
And then there was more darkness than what he started with, and it was collapsing toward him, rushing like water, or earth, or the sky itself.
Thirteen
Briar downed first the one mug, then a second one filled with water. She asked about the beer.
“Do you want some?”
“No. I just wondered why it was an option.”
Swakhammer served himself a taller mug filled with sour-smelling ale and pulled up a chair across from Briar. He said, “Because it’s easier to turn Blight-bitter water into beer than it is to purify it. Distilling makes for a nasty brew, but it won’t kill you or turn you rotty.”
“I see,” she said, and it made perfect sense. But she couldn’t imagine swilling the urine-yellow beverage except under the most dire of circumstances. Even at a distance, it had a scent that would peel paint.
“It takes some getting used to,” he admitted. “But once you do, it’s not so bad. And you know, I never did catch your name.”
“Briar,” she offered.
“Briar what?”
She gave fast consideration to inventing a new identity, and discarded the idea just as quickly. Her experience with the Namaah Darlings captain and crew had been an encouragement. “It was Wilkes,” she said. “And now, it’s Wilkes again.”
“Briar Wilkes. So that makes you… all right. No wonder you were keeping it to yourself. Who let you down here—Cly?”
“That’s right. Captain Cly. He’s the one who dropped me down, on his way elsewhere. How’d you know?”
He took another swallow of beer and said, “Everybody knows how he escaped the Blight. It’s no secret. And he’s not the worst sort of guy. Not the best, but definitely not the worst. I trust he didn’t give you any trouble? ”
“He was a perfect gentleman,” she said.
He smiled, revealing a bottom row of teeth that fit together strangely. “I find that tough to believe. He’s a big son of a gun, ain’t he?”
“Enormous, yes, though you’re no small fry yourself. You gave me a hell of a scare, bursting in like that. As if your voice weren’t awful enough in that mask, it makes you look like a monster, too.”
“It does! I know it does. But it keeps me breathing better than that old contraption you were wearing, and the suit keeps the worst of the rotter bites from landing. They’ll eat you up whole, if they can catch you and bring you down.” He rose to refill his drink and stayed standing, striking a thoughtful pose with one arm folded and the other holding the mug. “So you’re Maynard’s girl. I thought you looked familiar, but I wouldn’t have placed you if you hadn’t said anything. And that makes your son who’s missing—”
“Ezekiel. His name’s Ezekiel, but he goes by Zeke.”
“Sure, sure. And Zeke is Maynard’s grandson. You think he’s making a point to tell people about it?”
Briar nodded. “He must be. He knows it might help him here, and he doesn’t realize—not fully, I don’t think—how it could also hurt him. Not that he’s Maynard’s, I mean. About his father.”
She sighed and asked for more water. While Swakhammer refilled the mug, she said, “It’s not his fault. None of it’s his fault; it’s all mine. I should’ve told him… God. I never told him anything. And now he’s on this mission to root through the past and see if he can find anything that’s worth having.”
Another mug of stale water landed on the table in front of her. She took it, and drank down half its contents.
“So did Ezekiel come here looking for his father?”
“Looking for him? In a way, I suppose, he thinks he can prove his father was innocent if he can find proof that the Russian ambassador paid to have the Boneshaker tested before it was ready. He came here wanting to find the old laboratory, so he could hunt for some way to clear Levi’s name.” Briar drank the rest of the water. Swakhammer offered her more, but she waved her hand to tell him no.
“Can he do it?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Can he do it? Can he prove Blue was innocent in the Blight affair?”
She shook her head and almost laughed. “Oh no. Oh God no, he can’t. Levi was as guilty as Cain.” Almost immediately, she wished she hadn’t said that last part. She didn’t want her new companion to ask any questions, so she hurriedly added, “Maybe, deep down, Zeke knows it. Maybe he only wants to see where he came from, or see the damage for himself. He’s only a boy,” she said, and she tried hard to keep the exasperation out of her words. “Heaven only knows why he ever does anything.”
“He never knew his dad, I guess.”
“No. Thank God.”
Swakhammer leaned against the back of the chair across from Briar. “Why would you say that?”
“Because Levi never had a chance to corrupt him or change him.” That wasn’t all she could say, but it was all she could muster for this stranger. “I keep thinking, maybe one day this war back east will end—and then I can pack him up and head somewhere else, where nobody knows about either one of us. That would be better, wouldn’t it? It can’t be any worse than being here.”
“Being here’s not so bad,” he argued with a sardonic grin. “Just look at this palace!”
“It is bad, and you know it as well as I do. So why do you stay? Why would you live here—why would anybody?”
Swakhammer shrugged and finished his beer. He chucked the mug back into a crate and said, “We all got our reasons. And you can make it down here, if you want to. Or if you have to. It’s not easy, but it’s not easy anyplace, anymore.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Anyway, there’s money to be made. There’s freedom, and plenty of opportunity if you know where to look.”
“From what? From how?” Briar asked. “From looting the old rich places? One day, that money will run out. There’s only so much you can steal and sell inside the walls, or so I’d think.”
He shifted on his feet. He said, “There’s always the Blight. It’s not going anywhere, and no one knows what to do about it. If you can’t turn a buck off the sap, then it really isn’t any use to anyone.”
“Lemon sap kills people.”
“So do other people. So do dogs. So do angry horses, and diseases, and gangrene, and birthing babies. And what about the war? You don’t think the war back east kills people? I promise you this—it kills them by the score, and it kills more of them than the Blight does. More by thousands, I bet.”
Briar shrugged, but it wasn’t a dismissal. “You’ve got a point, I’m sure. But my son isn’t going to die in childbirth, or in war—not yet, at least. At the moment, he’s much more likely to sicken himself to death with that stupid drug, because he’s only a child, and children do stupid things. And please understand, I’m not accusing you of anything. I understand how the world works, and I know plenty about doing what you must in order to get by.”
“I don’t owe you an explanation.”
“I’m not asking you for one. But you seemed mighty ready to offer one in self-defense.”
He pushed at the chair and gave her a look that was almost a glare, but wasn’t quite. “That’s fine. As long as we understand each other.”
“I think we do, yes.” She rubbed at her eyes and scratched at her thigh, where the little cuts from the window were itching like mad; but least they weren’t bleeding anymore.
“You hurt?” Swakhammer asked, eager to change the subject.
“Just a few cuts. It wouldn’t be so bad except for the gas rubbing in it. You don’t have any bandages around here, do you? I’ll need some for decency’s sake, if nothing else. My pants are going to come apart before long, so I could use a needle and thread, too.”
His crooked-toothed smile warmed its way back onto his face. “Sounds like you need a secretary, or a nice hotel. I’m afraid I can’t give you much along those lines, but now that I’ve decided where to take you, I think we can get you patched up.”
Briar didn’t like his phrasing. “What do you mean by that? Where are you going to take me?”
“You’ve got to understand,” he said. He shouldered his armor and stuffed his mask up under his arm. “This is a… well, let’s call it a controlled community. It’s not for everyone, and we like it just fine that way. But every now and again, someone drops down off an airship or wriggles up from down by the water, wanting to make a change. People get the idea that there’s something valuable in here, and people want to get their fingers in that pie.” He cocked his head at her mask, and at the bag and rifle that were sitting on the table beside her. “Get your stuff together.”
“Where are you taking me?” she asked more urgently, wrapping her fingers around the gun.
“Sweetheart, if I was going to do you any trouble, I would’ve taken that away.” He pointed at the Spencer. “I’m going to take you to your daddy’s place. Sort of. Now come on. It’s afternoon now and it’s getting dark, and it gets even worse out there when it’s dark. We’re walking underneath the really bad parts, but this time of day, everybody and their brother is dropping down into the tunnels.”
“Is that bad?”
“It might be. As I was going to tell you, before you distracted me, we’ve got plenty of problems down here already. That’s why we have to watch the new folks so closely. We don’t need any more trouble than we already got.”