Abbee dashed across the wobbly dock, up the steps, and into a small garden shared by two brick houses. A couple of marble benches surrounded by lush greenery, with a few trees and a babbling fountain in the corner. It was nice back here. No people at the moment. Quiet. The city’s bustle sounded far away. Abbee might have paused to enjoy it if she hadn’t had constables chasing her. A tall wall separated the garden from an alley between the houses. Abbee ran up the side of the house and pushed off as she lost momentum, vaulting high enough to get her hands on the top of the wall. She hauled herself up.
“There she is!” a man shouted behind her.
Abbee saw Clint reach the garden with two other constables behind him. They were all out of shape and round. She doubted any of them could top the wall.
Abbee twisted around and dropped off the wall. She landed in a dirty alley with two overflowing trash bins on one side, a stark difference in scenery to the garden. She wrinkled her nose and breathed shallowly until she reached the end. Three alleys on the opposite side of the street. To the left, on the corner of the opposite block, Abbee recognized the big red building that housed the River District’s repeater hub. Henk Slempy might be on the roof, sending messages and nursing a hangover.
The hub in this district was on the corner of Riverbend Street and Main Avenue, the latter of which ran all the way into the Yard District. Abbee realized she was six blocks south of Charcer Bridge and the Narrows. Six blocks. She felt a prickle of irritation, far more than having constables on her tail, at the colossal effort she’d endured, including fighting three guilders, just to move six blocks south.
She glanced both ways. A pair of constables to the right, heading away with their backs to her. Abbee sometimes wished for the old days, but she was happy for the current situation, in which constables didn’t carry artifact chips. She didn’t know how people had avoided the law back then, when the law had spoken to itself across the city with its talkie tabs. Clint couldn’t call ahead. She heard crashes at the back of the house next to her. The constables were breaking in to go through. A man inside shouted in alarm.
Abbee ran across the street, weaving between carts and foot traffic. Slipped into the alley behind the repeater building. Dodged more bins and a few people on a loading dock, playing dice. They watched her go by, and Abbee felt their gazes on her back. She popped out the other side and trotted up to Main Avenue. It was busy. Plenty of places to get lost in.
But the repeater hub was also a great place to send word across the city that Abbee Danner had been spotted. The constables chasing her might be fat and slow, but Abbee doubted they were stupid enough to skip sending a message. She needed to get out of Akken, and fast.
Abbee stepped into Main Avenue and flagged down the first passenger cart she saw. A battered buggy pulled up. The seat was stained and ripped in places, but the wheels looked solid, and the drover was alert.
“Where to?” the drover asked.
“Train yards,” Abbee said. She dug a silver coin out of her pouch and handed it over.
“I’ll get you some change.”
Abbee climbed into the buggy’s seat and rested her feet on the thick metal bar that doubled as a front bumper. “That whole silver’s yours if you can get me there in twenty minutes.” She expected to get change back but figured an incentive to hurry would help.
“Twenty minutes?” The drover pulled out a pair of goggles and put them on. Abbee heard a heavy clank, and the buggy kicked off from the curb, hard. “What do I get if I get you there in ten?”
“Ten? You’re crazy. Two silvers. And I have to be in one piece when we get there.”
“Hold on,” the drover advised.
“To wh—” Abbee’s head snapped back with a sudden burst of speed. She pressed into the side of the seat as the buggy veered around a heavy cargo cart in front of them. Once past, she slid across the seat to the opposite side as the drover yanked them over into the right lane. Abbee grabbed onto the seat’s arm, half-expecting to find nail marks from previous passengers. The wind rose from a gentle breeze to a steady rush past Abbee’s ears. Water streamed from her eyes, and she squinted to see.
“Are you out of your mind?” Abbee shouted. “We’re going to crash!”
“Doubt it,” the drover shouted back. The buggy lurched to avoid hitting two children crossing the street. “Almost never happens.”
“Almost … How often—” Abbee slid across the seat again. She wondered if the stains were from riders throwing up. She planted both feet on the bumper bar, her legs spread wide for bracing, and grabbed onto both sides of the seat. She was less sitting and more stretching, like skin across a drum.
The buggy soared across the Yard District. Buildings blurred past them. Every time Abbee thought she could relax a little, the drover yanked the buggy around. She lost count of how many times she was nearly thrown from the seat.
The eastern side of the Yards was the worst. The streets angled upward here to match the level of the train yards, so each intersection had a little lip on the road and turned into a jump. Abbee discovered she didn’t like flying.
They arrived outside the train yards in a cloud of dust and screeching wheels, halting right in front of the entrance. A large opening in the escarpment, wide enough for four carts to pass without scraping each other. Ten meters tall. Still not big enough for a golem, which was why the train yards weren’t as new as the rest of the city. The golems hadn’t walked through it. Lots of people living in this part of town had a story about where in the train yards they’d taken refuge during Towerfall.
It was midday, and the train yards were busy. A steady stream of foot and cart traffic heading in and out. Hundreds of people all watched Abbee’s buggy arrive. Everybody saw them. So did a constable coming out of the train yards. He looked right at Abbee. Her hood had fallen off her head. She saw him see her. Abbee tensed.
The constable’s gaze slid past her to the drover. “Orlen!” he barked. “What did I tell you the last time you flew in here?”
“That you’d arrest me if I hit anybody, sir,” the drover, Orlen, said. “Didn’t hit anybody, sir.”
“Yeah, well, I’m amending it to if I see you skid across the courtyard like that again.”
Orlen ducked his head. “Got it.”
The constable kept walking. Didn’t look at Abbee again. She climbed off the buggy, facing away from him. She didn’t understand. Why had he ignored her? Either she had gotten here faster than the repeaters sent messages, or Clint hadn’t stopped to send word about her being in the city. He couldn’t be that dumb.
Orlen held up a thick brass disk. Peered at it. “Damn. Thirteen minutes. Sorry. I was sure I could make it here in ten. I did it that one time, but it was at night. Less traffic.”
“You’ve … at night?” Abbee asked. “Without … What is that thing you’ve got there?”
“This?” Orlen showed her the disk. It was several centimeters across and had a glass cover over three little metal arms pointing in different directions. One of the arms moved. “Timepiece. Brand new. My friend at the university gives me things to try out. This tells the time.”
“The time?”
“Well, sort of. I have to remember to wind it every few hours or so, or else it slows down too much. It’s only easy to calibrate it at noon too, but it helps me see how fast I’m going.”
Abbee shook dirt off her coat. “I don’t think you need a timepiece … thing for that.”
Orlen tapped the glass cover. “Beats carrying an hourglass around.” He gestured at the escarpment. “He wants to hang a giant one up there, so you can see it from anywhere in the city. Interesting idea, but he’ll have to solve the winding and calibration problems first. Can’t imagine having to climb up to wind a giant version of this.”
“Yes, well, thank you,” Abbee said. She gestured at the battered seat. “You should add straps or a harness.”
“Tried that,” Orlen said, “but there was that time when a fellow couldn’t get out when we fell off Charcer Bridge, and—”
“Charcer Bridge has railings up to my waist,” Abbee said. “How’d you—no, never mind.” Abbee counted herself lucky for surviving the trip across town without serious injury. She grimaced and left.
She was also lucky that the constable who’d berated Orlen had ignored her. Too lucky. It didn’t make any sense. The constables who’d chased her across Charcer Bridge into the Narrows had mentioned a warrant. They’d said there was a warrant out for her arrest, for murder. If that was the case, it would’ve been spread across Akken. Every constable would be on the lookout for Abbee. They had a likeness of her at the precincts. They all knew what she looked like. That constable should’ve stopped her.
No warrant?
That made even less sense. No warrant meant Davo hadn’t reported the events in the quarry. Not even Ipsu’s body. She’d have thought he’d jump at any chance to get her out of his hair. Maybe Davo had a shipment coming in and didn’t want the extra attention. But something was going on. Someone wanted Abbee. Badly. Someone who could move both the Murder Guild and corrupt North Bend constables. Abbee had to get out of town.
She hurried out onto a wide platform with a sweeping view of the train yards. A giant cavern in the escarpment. Tall enough for a golem to fit comfortably, if the entrances had been big enough. The opera house would fit in here in its entirety with room to spare. The air was thick with glimmermote. It swirled about in glittering eddies and clouds. Every few minutes, a cloud touched one of the tall lamps towering over everybody’s head, crackling into a violent ripple of rainbow hues.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Dozens of berths, and all of them had a continental train arriving, unloading, loading, or departing. The berths were set into the floor. The platform Abbee stood on was a few meters tall, but the trains were still taller. Continentals were enormous. Each cart was a long rectangle of wood and metal, with a giant steel wheel at each corner. Trains had strings of such carts, some of them so long they stretched into the tunnels heading back outside. Most carts were enclosed boxes carrying crates or packed sacks. Some carts were flatbeds, others round metal tubes carrying fluids, and still others had porthole windows. Passenger carts. Abbee looked for one with a single level of windows. Two levels was an economy cart. Abbee wanted out of the city fast, but not bad enough to squeeze into a single train cart with thirty other people. Plus, she had a lot of money on her from the dead guilders. She liked the idea of the Murder Guild funding a first-class compartment.
Abbee stopped at the first train with a single-level passenger cart and walked down the gangway. The train was swarming with movers. Being around so many made Abbee nervous. She steeled herself against her fear. They were pushing crates and barrels around and weren’t paying her any attention.
“Hey,” Abbee said to the nearest one dressed in drover leathers. She gestured at the passenger cart. “You got room for one more?”
The drover frowned at her. “You got a ticket?”
“A what?”
“A ticket. You need one. We don’t take walk-ups anymore.”
“Since when?”
“Since three months ago.” The drover pointed back toward the entrance. “Ticket counter, back at the entrance to the yards. You walked right past it. There’s a big sign. How’d you miss it?”
Because I was panicking about who might be after me. Ipsu would’ve had choice words if he’d seen her lose her situational awareness like that. “Can’t you—”
“No. We’ll get fined if we bypass the ticket system. The city takes a cut of the fare.”
“Seems harsh.”
“You’re telling me. Though it does cut down on the number of people who interrupt us while we’re working.”
Abbee took the hint and walked back up the gangway. Back the way she had come. She paid attention this time. Watched faces around her, scanning for threats. She didn’t see any. She passed another constable, who paid her no mind. It should have helped her relax but did the opposite.
The ticket counter was a large desk with three clerks behind it. A big sign overhead said Tickets. Abbee had indeed walked right past it. Ipsu would’ve had so many choice words. The sign had a list of destinations and corresponding rates. They were running trains to a lot of places these days. The main cities, yes, but Abbee hadn’t realized trains went to the smaller cities from here too. Several dozen of them, so many she had to squint at the tiny lettering on the sign.
Where to go, where to go.
The smaller towns were out. Too few people, and too many who’d remember any travelers staying longer than a couple of days. That meant one of the cities. Veronna was a no-go. It was the network’s main hub, not to mention the coldest. Abbee didn’t like being underground all the time. Morat was too close to Veronna for Abbee’s comfort. Abbee only considered Joor because it was in her mental list of big cities. She wasn’t going there.
That left Kiva. Abbee thought about the thumb light she carried. It looked brand new. In the old days, Kiva had been the place to find the best lamps. Abbee might find a lamp seller who knew someone. It was a long shot. Kiva was also the last city to have reopened trade routes to Akken and Veronna after Towerfall, and relations between the cities had been frosty ever since. Kiva forbade the network or House soldiers from operating there—and enforced the edict with a military force of its own.
Every year, it seemed, Kivan authorities expelled or executed network operatives. Rumors in Akken rose and fell with whatever kerfuffle might cause this year to be “the one” that led to an all-out war between the cities. War never came. Ipsu used to say the only thing holding the cities in check was the Tower, but with nineteen years of wizard-free living, war no longer seemed inevitable. Abbee suspected war hadn’t arrived because Kiva itself was practically impregnable. Veronna had built its city inside mountains; Kiva was on top of one, with its back to the ocean and the finest navy in the world. If Abbee wanted to pick a major population center with the smallest network presence, Kiva was the place.
Abbee looked at the fare rates. Steerage was the lowest. She had no idea what that was, but it was even lower than quadruple-occupancy economy, which Abbee had thought was the lowest. It went up from there. Triple, double, single economy, then up to first class, and … What is a suite? In place of the suite’s rate was Inquire for availability. Abbee hadn’t realized there were so many choices.
She pulled out enough coins for first-class to Kiva. The guild was paying for her trip, though it took half her available coin. She had all the gems still. She could live off those for the rest of her life, but she’d have to convert them at a bank or maybe a jeweler’s. Abbee couldn’t sell them all at the same time—someone would take interest. Maybe it was time to see the world again, and all the bank branches in it.
Abbee stepped up to the ticket counter. She almost asked about a suite, but she might as well announce to the whole world that she was on a particular train. Suites were for rich people, and she didn’t look rich. Still, she wasn’t riding in an economy cart with thirty people and two small privies. “First class to Kiva.”
The clerk ran his finger down a list in front of him. “I got two trains. One leaves tomorrow and goes to Veronna first—”
“And the other?”
“Was supposed to leave this morning but dropped a wheel right here in the yard. Straight to Kiva.”
“When does it leave?”
“As soon as they finish repairs,” the clerk said. “An hour, maybe less. Trains normally wait till morning to take advantage of daylight, but we’ve got a train holding outside for that berth.”
“I’ll take it.”
“You sure? Leaving in the afternoon means you won’t get to Streamdale before dark. You’ll be parking in the middle of nowhere for the night. Half the passengers booked other trains.”
“Sounds great,” Abbee said, putting her money on the counter. “I want that one.”
“The one that drops a wheel when it’s hardly moving, sure,” the clerk said. He reached over and scooped up the coins. “Hope another one doesn’t fly off at full speed.” He pulled out a card with embossed edges and wrote down the fare details. He looked up halfway through. “Name?”
“What?”
“I need your name. And address.”
“Address? What for?”
The clerk rolled his eyes. “This again,” he muttered. “Look, I don’t make the rules, but we need your name and address to book fares.”
“Since when?”
“Since the Council made the rule. Name and address. I’m sorry, but you can’t get a ticket without it.”
“Kaylan Bonner,” Abbee said. Kaylan was an old lady who lived in New Bend and watched small children during the day while their parents worked. She bought a pint at the Iron Bull once a week and complained about the changing times. She’d lived in New Bend since Towerfall and had never left. “Ash Place.”
“Number?”
“You don’t get numbers in New Bend.”
The clerk eyeballed her. “First class, and you live in New Bend, eh?”
“I made a lucky bet at the bouts,” Abbee said. “Gonna see the world.”
The clerk smirked at her. “Sure.” He wrote down Abbee’s fake name and address on the ticket.
“How much is a suite?” Abbee asked. “I’m curious.”
“Twenty times the first-class rate.”
“Twenty? That’s crazy.”
“It’s a full train cart all to yourself. You also have to book them a week in advance. Only a couple outfits provide the carts. Trains don’t haul them around empty, just hoping for a rich fool to spend it all on one trip.”
“Wait, it’s one trip? You don’t get it for a year or something?”
“One trip,” the clerk said. He stamped Abbee’s ticket and handed it over. “More than I make in a year for one silly trip that’s over in six days. Some people have too much money, if you ask me.”
Six days.
She knew that was how long it took to get to Kiva from Akken, but it was still mind-boggling. Abbee and Ipsu had once spent three months running there. She’d been in the best shape of her life with Ipsu. Running, hunting, and training. She’d watched plenty of trains thunder by them on the road, and Ipsu had always said no. Hard to practice fighting in enclosed spaces, he’d said. Abbee wished they’d taken the trains. She’d done a lot of fighting in enclosed spaces and had had to learn the hard way. She’d also gotten used to running water. It was hard to leave running water.
***
Abbee’s train was a big one, with over twelve carts. All cargo carts except for two passenger carts behind the gear cart. One of the carts had a single row of windows, and the other had two. A lot of people loitered on the platform beside the train. The economy passengers, waiting outside before they stuffed themselves into the cramped cart for the trip. Several children ran around, corralled by harassed-looking parents. A few drovers stood around the platform, keeping the smaller ones from running down under the train.
A drover saw Abbee approaching down the gangway and peeled off from corral duty. “We’re leaving in about thirty minutes, once the wheel check is done. You can wait outside with the others.”
“Okay,” Abbee said.
“You got a ticket?”
Abbee pulled the card out of her pocket.
The drover’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, you don’t have to wait out here.” She raised her voice. “Havren!”
A man dressed in fancy livery leaned out of the front passenger cart. He had a trimmed silvery beard, and he wore spotless white gloves. “Yes?”
“Got one for you.”
Havren brightened. “Excellent, excellent.” He stepped down off the cart.
The crowd waiting outside all looked at Abbee. She had her hood down. At least fifty people saw her. Looked her up and down. Registered in their heads that this person was riding in first class, and they weren’t. Showed up late and boarded right away, without waiting on the platform while the train replaced a wheel.
Havren walked over and took the embossed card from the drover. He read it, his brow quivering a little. Abbee assumed he’d seen the New Bend address. Havren smiled at Abbee, a real, warm smile that touched his eyes. He blinked and looked around. “Does madam have any baggage for the journey?”
“No,” Abbee said, trying not to feel self-conscious about the “madam” business.
Another arched brow. Abbee was chalking up lots of details for this man to remember about her. “Right this way, madam,” Havren said. “Right this way. Mind that first step off the platform.”
Abbee followed Havren into the cart. A narrow corridor ran the length of the cart on one side, with four doors. The cart was twenty meters long. Four rooms on the whole cart. Havren opened the first door and stepped aside. “Your cabin, madam.”
Abbee noted the door slid sideways and had a latch instead of a doorknob.
She looked in the cabin. An oil lamp hanging from a ceiling chain illuminated warm wood and a leather sofa. Abbee went in. On the left was another compartment with a large bed. A door in the front compartment led to a small privy. The place was bigger than her apartment. Both compartments had round windows that looked wide enough for her to squeeze through in case of an emergency. It wasn’t a trapdoor but kept Abbee from feeling boxed in.
“Is everything to madam’s satisfaction?” Havren asked from the corridor.
“Yes,” Abbee said. She could hole up in here for the entire trip and not talk to anybody. Well, almost. “You wouldn’t happen to have any food, would you?”
“A meal will be served when we stop for the night. You can either take it outside or in your cabin.”
“In my cabin, thank you,” Abbee said.
Havren waited.
Abbee waited.
“Was there something else?”
“Apologies, madam,” Havren said, “but it’s customary to tip.”
“Oh.” Abbee was familiar with the practice but wasn’t used to it. Nobody tipped in economy, on account of there being no attendant. “Sorry.” She dug out a silver. She knew that it was a giant tip but handed it over anyway. It felt good to spread around the Murder Guild’s money.
Havren smiled a big smile, and the coin disappeared into his pocket. “Thank you, madam. If you need anything, anything at all, pull this cord next to the door, and I’ll be right over. You’re one of two first-class passengers for this trip, so response times will be prompt. We’ll be underway in about thirty minutes.” He put his hand on the door latch. “Does madam require anything else before we depart?”
“No.”
“Very good, madam.” Havren closed the door.
Abbee inspected the latch on the door. It had a lever to lock it, at least. She locked the door and sat down on the leather seat, shifting to find a comfortable position with her jobs case pressing into her back. She listened for sounds of her environment. She heard dull thumps through the floor, and the occasional hiss of steam pipes in the wall, but that was it. The compartments were quiet. Abbee relaxed a little and sank back into the sofa. This was nice. She could get used to this. Weariness washed over her. Strenuous day. Constables, Ramaro, the Murder Guild, constables again, and that lunatic in the buggy. She’d healed from significant injuries. Abbee closed her eyes, intent on resting for a couple of minutes, and fell asleep.