People of the City by Marshall Ryan Maresca

Author:Marshall Ryan Maresca [Maresca, Marshall Ryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2020-10-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

ASTI EXPECTED TROUBLE. THE HAIRS on the back of his neck were up, the danger was in his nose. He knew that whoever had taken Tarvis and who even knew how many other children were evil bastards. Following that Delmin kid down this tunnel, he was certain he was dealing with nefarious people, a depravity deeper than he had suspected.

The metallic tracks were imbedded into the passage floor, and steam pipes along the ceiling. He and Verci had been tracking the people behind the Andrendon Project, the people who had burned down their home and shop to claim the land on Holver Alley, and he believed what was being built beneath the Firewing house had been a part of that.

But this, whatever it was, was something else altogether. He knew these tunnels went deeper and farther than anyone in Maradaine suspected, and perhaps the Andrendon folks were just a front for whatever was going on here.

The tunnel suddenly dropped out, revealing a wide chamber below. This room had machinery—no, a machine, an enormous one with several pieces. Verci had told him about the death machine on the Parliament floor, and this put Asti in that same mind. Titanic and dark in purpose. The metal lines and the pipes fed toward it.

Whatever it was, it was quiet for now. Asti shuddered to think what it would do when fired up.

The kid had scrambled down to the machine floor, sputtering and swearing.

“Kid!” Asti wasn’t sure if it was safe to shout, and tried to yell and whisper at the same time. He didn’t see anyone else here, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be heard. “What the blazes are you doing?”

“What are they doing?” the kid said, looking up to Asti. “I mean, it boggles me.”

“They?” Asti wished he had brought a rope instead of just knives. Not that he couldn’t get down there easily enough. Getting back out would be harder. Getting out with folks after them, near impossible. Even still, he started to work his way down.

“Whoever built this,” Delmin said. “I mean, it’s fascinating. The way the numina swirls and pools, and then is drawn up through the big statue, redirected through the little ones, and then is sucked into the spikes.”

“Statues?” Asti asked, having reached the floor. He looked up at the machine and saw. “Great rutting saints.”

There were eight statues, all green jade: the one in the center of the machine, at least the size of a man, and the ones around the perimeter, each only a foot tall.

Asti had seen one of those small ones. Liora Rand had taken it out of Lord Henterman’s lockbox. And the large one, that had to be the one they had stolen in that first gig after the fire.

“What the rutting blazes is this?” he asked.

“I wish I knew,” Delmin said, coming back over to Asti. “I . . . I had fed just a hair of numina into it, well, a centibarin, if we’re being specific, which was

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