The Alchemy of Chaos: A Novel of Maradaine (Maradaine Novels) Read online

  So he narrowed his squad down to five solid patrol officers and two cadets. The ones he could trust. The ones who did it right. The ones who had been shut out by the rest of the stationhouse. He made them his own.

  It wasn’t much, but it was all he could get in Aventil. Saints knew none of the district commandants or even Commissioner Enbrain were going to send anything else his way.

  Didn’t matter. Benvin was going to do his job, and do it right. He’d dismantle every gang in this neighborhood and clean it up. Starting small, with the Red Rabbits, just to show everyone he could do it.

  Tonight wasn’t for the Rabbits, though, not directly. He planned to shut them down first, but he couldn’t make them the only thing he focused on. Tonight they were going to crack open the cider ring the Orphans were running. Sure, it was a tick-and-pence scheme, hardly worth the trouble. But that was why he wanted to crack it. No scheme, no ring, no crime was too small.

  So Benvin sat with Jace, one of the cadets, in the wagon on the northwest corner of Cantarell Square, watching with the scope. Arch, Pollit, and Tripper were in the square, waiting for their meet, and the rest of the lads were in place so they could move in. The targeted Orphans were approaching the square with their handcart of contraband cider.

  And then someone yelled “Rose Street!” and it all went to blazes.

  It took Benvin a moment to fully realize what was going on, and by the time he did, the Orphans were clearing out. Pollit and Tripper charged after them, while Arch just looked confused.

  But the real action was across the square, where the Rabbits were having a brawl. A full-on brawl. With whom? The Princes? One Prince?

  No, it was him.

  The Thorn.

  Benvin leaped off the cart and blasted his signal whistle as he charged across the square.

  By the time he was halfway across, Arch had come up behind him, running for all he was worth.

  “Thorn?” Arch asked, heaving for breath.

  “Thorn,” Benvin hissed back. That word was written on the top of their slateboard by Benvin’s desk back in the stationhouse, in big letters and underlined several times.

  The Thorn disengaged from the group of Rabbits, firing a wild arrow to get them to scatter. He took two steps toward Cantarell Square, but then changed direction as soon as he spotted Benvin and Arch.

  Arch drew up his crossbow and fired, but missed wide.

  And then the Thorn suddenly faded out of sight as he ran.

  “The blazes?” Arch said. “How’d he—”

  Benvin spotted a shimmer of something going into one of the alleyways. “There!”

  He tore after the shimmer, pulling up his own crossbow. The shimmer was still moving down the alley, as fast as a man running would. Benvin shot his blunt-tip at the shimmer.

  The blunt-tip made contact, and with a cry, the shimmer turned back into a cloaked man. He stumbled his way down the alley, giving Benvin a chance to reload his crossbow and close the distance.

  “Hold fast and be bound by law!” he shouted, as the Thorn turned on his heel and drew up his bow.

  Standing off against a constable’s crossbow was not where Veranix had planned to be.

  “Bound by law?” he asked the constable—a lieutenant by his collar—while doing his best to maintain his hood illusion. It wasn’t easy with the screaming pain in his back. Blunt-tip or not, it hurt like blazes. “I’m not who you want, Left.”

  “I know who you are,” the lieutenant said, steadying his shaking crossbow hand. “You’re going to be brought in.”

  “You go after me instead of a dozen Rabbits?”

  “Rabbits are nabbed in dozens,” the lieutenant said with a slight smile. “You’re something special. Now drop the bow.”

  “You drop yours,” Veranix said. “Mine’s not a blunt-tip.”

  Of course he had no intention of shooting a Constabulary lieutenant. He’d kill Fenmere’s men or other effitte dealers if he had to. Sticks were another matter. Most of them were good folk trying to do the right thing. This lieutenant probably thought he was.

  “I’ve got three more men coming, and theirs won’t be either.”

  He was expecting friends. Which was why he didn’t pay much mind to the person coming up behind him, who was definitely not a stick. Too young and skinny.

  “Sorry, Left,” Veranix said. “This isn’t your night.”

  The skinny kid brought up a sapper and dropped it on the lieutenant’s head. He crumpled to the ground like a sack of rocks.

  “Take it!” he shouted with a bit of a laugh.

  Veranix wasn’t sure if he should drop his bow.

  “You can’t run that way, Thorn,” the kid said. “It blocks off, only a door to a Rabbit clubhouse.” He winked and held up his arm, showing off his tattoo. A Rose Street Prince.

  “Your knife?” Veranix asked.

  “Blazes, yes!”

  Constabulary whistles, and the lieutenant moaned and tried to pull himself up.

  Veranix put up his bow. “No time for subtlety.” Taking out the rope, he shot one end up to the rooftop while he grabbed the Prince’s arm. “Hang on.”

  More Constabulary ran into the alley as he had the rope pull them up to the top of the building.

  “Blazes!” shouted the Prince as their feet hit the eaves. “How’d you—”

  “Just wait, kid.” The Prince was probably the same age as Veranix was, but no reason to let him know that. He took a moment to marshal up more numina—it was going to take a lot of magical energy to pull this off—and half dragging the Prince with him, he made a running leap from the roof.

  The two of them sailed across Cantarell Square, landing gently right outside an alleyway off Hedge, halfway between Orchid and Rose streets.

  This time the Prince couldn’t even muster an expletive. He almost looked like he’d soiled himself.

  “All right?” Veranix asked, hiding as best he could how winded he felt. He knew he was pushed past his limit right now. The rope and the cloak, with their numina-drawing abilities, could mask those limits, but Veranix had learned how to read his own fatigue through that. He wasn’t going to let himself get too reliant on these things.

  “Damn,” was all the Prince mustered.

  “Spread word, kid,” Veranix said. “Rabbits might be trying to shuffle effitte, let Fenmere bleed across the Path.”

  “Serious?” the Prince said. Now that Veranix got a look at him, he’d seen this one before, around Colin a few times.

  “Let your captain know.” He took a few steps away. “And thanks, kid.”

  He shrouded himself as best he could without exhausting himself further, and slipped off down the street.

  “Mister Calbert!”

  Rellings, the third-floor prefect of Almers Hall, was waiting at the main door of the Hall, leaning cockily in the doorframe. It didn’t suit his large, lumbering form in the slightest, nor did the self-satisfied smirk on his doughy face.

  “It’s past ten bells, Mister Calbert,” he said. “Quite late, indeed.”

  “It’s a break day, Rellings. There’s no curfew.” Veranix had left his cloak, rope, weapons, and all the rest of his accoutrements of the Thorn back in the tunnel under the carriage house, and changed back into his school uniform. He even had his red-and-gray scarf marking him as a magic student, and the tasseled cap with three pips showing him as a third-year. Rellings’s uniform was a few sizes larger, but other than one more pip and a gray-and-white scarf, his was the same.

  “But whatever could you have been doing so late, especially when exams are about to gear up? Most of your fellows have been studying.”

  “That’s most of my fellows,” Veranix said. “Are you going to give me a hard time?”

  “Came in from the southeastern corner of campus. The library isn’t over there.”

>   This was what Rellings was on about. He knew Veranix was coming from the carriage house, where Kaiana lived. This had been the scuttle for months, of course. People in Almers figured Veranix was up to something, and it involved the half-Napolic girl. It had been little more than whispers until the month before, when he had been caught in the carriage house with Kaiana half-naked. That only happened because she was protecting the reason why he was really there. Word of that had made its way back to Almers and the whispers had exploded to full rumor and wild speculation. Almost every boy in the dormitory had been giving Veranix nods of admiration, scowls of moral scorn, and, most of all, sidelong looks of jealousy.

  Not that anything had happened between Veranix and Kai that would have really earned admiration, moral scorn, or jealousy.

  The rumors had clearly piqued Rellings’s interest.

  “No, Rellings,” Veranix said. “I was definitely not at the library. Now please let me by. As you might imagine, I’m sore and exhausted. I really need to get to bed.”

  Nothing he had just said was remotely untrue. Whatever Rellings inferred from that was his own problem.

  His meaty face frowning, Rellings waved him through the door. “I’ll be doing bed checks later, Calbert.”

  “If that helps you get through the night, Rellings,” Veranix said, and trudged his way up the stairs to the room on the third floor he shared with Delmin.

  He came in and dropped onto his bed, ignoring all the glances and raised eyebrows of the rest of the third-floor residents. Delmin was deep into a book at his desk, oil lamps burning hot, and as soon as Veranix was down, he shut the door to their quarters.

  “What happened out there tonight?” he asked in a manic whisper. Veranix half opened his eyes, seeing Delmin’s skinny face and stringy hair far closer than he wanted them to be.

  “I’m fine,” Veranix muttered. “Just tired. Had to push a little too hard.” He struggled to pull off his jacket and shirt.

  “How’d you get that?” Delmin pointed at Veranix’s back.

  “You don’t want to know. How bad is it?”

  “It’s a pretty horrible bruise.”

  “Blunt-tip from a crossbow.”

  Delmin grimaced. “I don’t know how you . . . isn’t it Constabulary who use blunt-tips?”

  “Didn’t I say you don’t want to know?” Veranix sighed and sat back up. “Define ‘pretty horrible.’”

  “I’d wait a few days before hitting the bathhouse if you don’t want strange questions.”

  “Like I don’t get those already,” Veranix said. The scar in his right shoulder was pretty well healed, but it did draw attention.

  “All right, I don’t want to know details,” Delmin said, sitting back at his desk. “But . . . you did good things out there, right? It was worth the trouble?”

  “I think so,” Veranix said. Certainly Bell’s journal had value beyond just the Red Rabbit names.

  “Does it make us safer here?” Delmin seemed very nervous to be asking this. Veranix had noticed Del had been avoiding conversations about his outside activities for the past month.

  “You mean you and me?”

  “I mean, on the campus. All the University.” Delmin fidgeted with his pens. “I mean, last time, the professor was taken.”

  “That isn’t going to happen anymore,” Veranix said. “That was about the Blue Hand Circle, and they’re done.”

  Delmin looked like he had more to say, but then turned back to his books. “So you need to get on task for this history exam.”

  “All exams,” Veranix said. “Though we don’t have a Practicals exam. Just the meeting with the professor.”

  “Tomorrow’s meeting is our exam in Magic Practicals,” Delmin said. “I don’t know how it’s going to work exactly, but one way or another, we’re starting that exam at breakfast tomorrow.”

  “You’re probably right,” Veranix said. “History in the afternoon, Magic Theory the day after that, and Rhetoric on the last day.”

  “Rhetoric for you,” Delmin said. “I can’t help you with that.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Veranix said. “It’s just writing an argument on paper.”

  There was a knock on the door. Veranix pulled his shirt back on as Delmin answered it. Eittle, the Naturalism student whose room was the next one over, hovered in the hallway.

  “Heard you two talking,” he said. The walls of Almers weren’t too thin. You could hear that conversations were going on in the next room, but couldn’t usually make out details.

  “I just got in,” Veranix said.

  Eittle nodded. He was too polite to ask details of where Veranix had been, and Veranix seriously doubted the young farm boy had any notion of his evening adventures. “Right, I figured. I just . . . couldn’t sleep just yet. Most everyone is too quiet right before exams. Real quiet, you know?”

  “Quiet” had been a word Eittle had been dropping a lot recently, mostly because he was alone in his quarters. His roommate, Parsons, had all but died in an effitte overdose. Now he was in a drooling state with other effitte victims down at the Trenn Street Ward.

  Other victims like Veranix’s mother.

  Unlike Veranix’s mother, though, Parsons was only a victim of his own foolishness. If Veranix had known he was using effitte he’d have . . . he wasn’t sure what he’d have done. But it was too late to help Parsons now.

  Veranix had been so lost in thought, he wasn’t sure what Eittle and Delmin were talking about. “—and that was the horse’s!” Eittle said.

  “You aren’t going back up for the summer, are you?” Delmin asked.

  “No,” Eittle said. “I didn’t tell you?”

  “You’ve got a plan for the summer?” Veranix asked.

  “I’m going in-country with Professor Hester.”

  “He’s your astronomy professor, right?” Delmin asked. “What’s in-country?”

  “Up in the high hills in Toren, where he and some of his colleagues from other universities have built a series of grand scopes. We’re going to be observing the seven planets over the course of the season.”

  “So this is a good opportunity?” Veranix asked.

  “I’m astounded he asked me,” Eittle said. He gave a little self-deprecating smile. “I imagine there might be heavy equipment to carry.”

  “I hear that,” Veranix said.

  “What are you even talking about?” Delmin asked.

  “Do you have any idea the kind of scut Alimen is having me do right now?”

  “I’m sure it’s not that—” Delmin trailed off. “What is that?”

  “What?” Eittle asked, looking around.

  “I don’t notice anything,” Veranix said, but something was making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

  “Oh, sweet saints!” someone yelled from down the hall.

  “What is that?” someone else yelled.

  A moment later a stench hit them all like a wave crashing on the shore. Veranix almost fell over from the power of it, like nothing he had ever smelled before. It was as if a sewer had been festering with rotten eggs for months before finally bursting open.

  Delmin gagged, and Veranix was barely able to keep his stomach from emptying its contents on the floor.

  “Is that the water closet?” Eittle asked, covering his face with his sleeve. “Did it break somehow?”

  “Come on,” Veranix said, forcing himself to his feet. “Delmin, you all right?”

  “That’s horrid,” Delmin said, stumbling to the window. He pushed it open and gasped deeply.

  “Call down to Rellings,” Veranix said, tapping Eittle on the chest to follow him.

  The stench filled the hallways, the air had turned hazy. Young men were coming out of their rooms, crying and retching. Some were even dropping to the ground.

  “Get some window
s open!” Veranix ordered to no one in particular. “Where’s it coming from?”

  The people who were capable of reacting shrugged, looking confused.

  “Is it just this floor?” a second-year asked.

  “Go check,” Veranix said. The boy didn’t question him and ran to the stairwell. Veranix followed his first instinct, heading to the floor’s water closet. He opened up the door, and while the hazy stench was present, there was no sense that it was any stronger here.

  “This isn’t it,” Eittle said.

  Delmin came stumbling over. “Opening the windows doesn’t help. I think it’s outside as well.”

  “Blazes,” Veranix said. He went over to the water closet window, opening it up. The haze hugged the outside of the building, but the lawn farther out seemed clear. Boys were running away from Almers Hall, pouring out every door. “Let’s get everyone out.”

  Eittle nodded and took a deep breath, which struck Veranix as incredibly bold. “Run the drill! Clear out and hit the lawn!”

  Delmin stumbled, and grasped the doorframe to hold himself up.

  “This isn’t . . .” he wheezed.

  Veranix was still quite fatigued from the night’s escapades, and the stench wasn’t helping, but he got himself under Delmin’s arm and hoisted his friend up. “Let’s move.”

  “I’ve got him,” Eittle said, scooping Delmin up. He went to the stairwell, while Veranix checked the various rooms to make sure no one else was passing out. In one room he found a first-year curled up in a ball, lying in his own sick. He grabbed the kid—Benkins?—and pulled him out to the hallway.

  “Calbert?” Rellings came down the hallway, his uniform scarf wrapped around his mouth. “Is everyone else out of this?” He got on the other side of the first-year and helped Veranix get him to the stairwell.

  “Think so,” Veranix said. “Any idea what this is?”

  “Some joker’s sick idea of a prank, I think,” Rellings said. “Get him on the lawn. Air is fresh once you’re past the grass.” He turned back to the floor.