light the lock.
Weird feelings of déjà vu flooded through Fever. Memories of yesterday mingled with memories of other yesterdays that could not possibly be her own. Pain was beating again at the base of her skull. She began to wonder if she were still inside her dream, if she climbed the stairs again and went outside, would there be lights in the unbroken windows of Nonesuch House? Would the float lanterns be rising still above the ornamental ponds, pink as blushes, gold as harvest moons?
She forced her eyes to turn toward the line of keys set in the door frame, and suddenly, as if one of those gods in whom Engineers did not believe had just whispered it in her ear, she knew the code.
***
They were pushing through the marshes south of 'Bankmentside, following one of the old causeways through the birch woods and diggers' heaps and the ruins of drowned boroughs. Bagman had commandeered a coracle, a marshman's little wicker and tar-cloth boat, and Charley carried it upended on his shoulders, blundering along behind his master like a black beetle.
"Where is this place we're going?" he asked.
"Godshawk's gaff," said Bagman Creech, scanning the drifting mist ahead for hints of trouble. "His summer palace in the Marsh."
"I heard of Godshawk. He was King of the Patchskins, weren't he?"
"He was at the end. He didn't want to be. The Scriven elected him King thinking he'd save them, but they were past saving by then. Godshawk was an inventor, mostly. Forever tinkering and fiddlearsing with the old technology, the way some Scriven did. They said there was a laboratory under that summer place of his where he did experiments on dead people and stuff. Though I never saw it for myself."
"You were there?"
Bagman Creech nodded. "The place got overlooked in the Riots, but a couple of weeks later we got word that some escaped Scriven had holed up there. Me and some of the lads got together and came out here. We followed this very path you're walking now, boy."
Charley tried to feel suitably awed, and told himself that he was walking on history, but mostly it still felt as if he were walking on porridge. The wood of the causeway was rotted and slimy, and the coracle on his back made him clumsy. Several times he almost fell, and at last Bagman called a halt. They left the path and squatted in the angle between two old walls, eating a bath bun and wiping the sugar and crumbs from their mouths on the sleeves of their coats. Bagman lit his pipe, and the smoke went up to mingle with the mist, and his memory went homing back to that day on this same path, long ago.
"When we got to Godshawk's gaff we found they'd cut the causeway and we had to wade the last bit. A slough of water, shoulder deep, with Godshawk's gardens rising up out of it ahead. Croquet hoops still stuck in the lawns. I was in the lead, halfway across, when all of a sudden these things started jumping up out of the water all around us. Wet and shiny they was, like black snakes, jumping straight up. I didn't know what was happening till the bloke on my right got hit, and then the bloke on my left, and I realized there were bullets coming down all around us. There were Scriven hiding in Godshawk's gardens, shooting at us with hunting guns."
"What did you do, Master Creech?"
"I ducked, didn't I?" Bagman fingered a half-moon nick in the brim of his bowler where a bullet had taken a bite. "It was all I could do. Went down quick, like I'd been shot. Ducked right under the water so that only my hat was left, floating on the surface. At least, that's how it would have looked to the Scriven. Only what they couldn't see was that I'd got my face poking up inside the hat so's I could breathe. I stayed like that for hours."
"And the other men?"
"All dead, son. There was one just wounded -- Billy Kite, from B@ersea -- I could hear him yelling out for help. But the Scriven kept banging their guns at him and after a while they must have hit him again, 'cos he shut up. And there I
Weird feelings of déjà vu flooded through Fever. Memories of yesterday mingled with memories of other yesterdays that could not possibly be her own. Pain was beating again at the base of her skull. She began to wonder if she were still inside her dream, if she climbed the stairs again and went outside, would there be lights in the unbroken windows of Nonesuch House? Would the float lanterns be rising still above the ornamental ponds, pink as blushes, gold as harvest moons?
She forced her eyes to turn toward the line of keys set in the door frame, and suddenly, as if one of those gods in whom Engineers did not believe had just whispered it in her ear, she knew the code.
***
They were pushing through the marshes south of 'Bankmentside, following one of the old causeways through the birch woods and diggers' heaps and the ruins of drowned boroughs. Bagman had commandeered a coracle, a marshman's little wicker and tar-cloth boat, and Charley carried it upended on his shoulders, blundering along behind his master like a black beetle.
"Where is this place we're going?" he asked.
"Godshawk's gaff," said Bagman Creech, scanning the drifting mist ahead for hints of trouble. "His summer palace in the Marsh."
"I heard of Godshawk. He was King of the Patchskins, weren't he?"
"He was at the end. He didn't want to be. The Scriven elected him King thinking he'd save them, but they were past saving by then. Godshawk was an inventor, mostly. Forever tinkering and fiddlearsing with the old technology, the way some Scriven did. They said there was a laboratory under that summer place of his where he did experiments on dead people and stuff. Though I never saw it for myself."
"You were there?"
Bagman Creech nodded. "The place got overlooked in the Riots, but a couple of weeks later we got word that some escaped Scriven had holed up there. Me and some of the lads got together and came out here. We followed this very path you're walking now, boy."
Charley tried to feel suitably awed, and told himself that he was walking on history, but mostly it still felt as if he were walking on porridge. The wood of the causeway was rotted and slimy, and the coracle on his back made him clumsy. Several times he almost fell, and at last Bagman called a halt. They left the path and squatted in the angle between two old walls, eating a bath bun and wiping the sugar and crumbs from their mouths on the sleeves of their coats. Bagman lit his pipe, and the smoke went up to mingle with the mist, and his memory went homing back to that day on this same path, long ago.
"When we got to Godshawk's gaff we found they'd cut the causeway and we had to wade the last bit. A slough of water, shoulder deep, with Godshawk's gardens rising up out of it ahead. Croquet hoops still stuck in the lawns. I was in the lead, halfway across, when all of a sudden these things started jumping up out of the water all around us. Wet and shiny they was, like black snakes, jumping straight up. I didn't know what was happening till the bloke on my right got hit, and then the bloke on my left, and I realized there were bullets coming down all around us. There were Scriven hiding in Godshawk's gardens, shooting at us with hunting guns."
"What did you do, Master Creech?"
"I ducked, didn't I?" Bagman fingered a half-moon nick in the brim of his bowler where a bullet had taken a bite. "It was all I could do. Went down quick, like I'd been shot. Ducked right under the water so that only my hat was left, floating on the surface. At least, that's how it would have looked to the Scriven. Only what they couldn't see was that I'd got my face poking up inside the hat so's I could breathe. I stayed like that for hours."
"And the other men?"
"All dead, son. There was one just wounded -- Billy Kite, from B@ersea -- I could hear him yelling out for help. But the Scriven kept banging their guns at him and after a while they must have hit him again, 'cos he shut up. And there I
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