The spider key, p.52
The Spider Key, page 52
“He must still be packing,” Simon replied.
Everyone paused mid-way down the steps, but Abner waved them on.
“I’ll get him. The rest of you go on. We’ll catch up.”
Caradoc sat on the storage trunk at the foot of his bed, leaning on his knees with his hands clasped together. His pack lay on the bed beside him. He stared down at the floor in a daze, unblinking. A chorus of bright pipes and merry fiddles floated up the street and through the open window.
He finally broke from his trance at the noise of laughter echoing from the courtyard. Horse hooves clopped against the cobblestones. Servants called to one another. He raised his head and twisted his neck, wringing out a twinge of pain near his shoulder. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t go to a party and pretend to be happy and carefree, as if nothing had happened. Then again, neither did he want anyone sinking into despair under a cloud of gloom. He set his hands on the edge of the trunk, preparing to stand. But then his eye caught sight of something glinting in the light. It was the knife tethered to his pack.
He stared at it for a long moment. All the while a great swell of deep anger grew, darkening his face. It was all he could do to keep from shaking with it. Almost absentmindedly, as though he'd fallen into another trance, he began to unwrap the bandage from his left hand. The blood had dried but the wound still ached. The sight of it pushed his anger to the edge of rage.
He grabbed the knife out of its sheath. Sweat beaded on his brow as he held it in front of him, trying to determine the sharpness of its edges. Satisfied, he set his hand on his knee and uncurled his fingers. The golden web gleamed in his palm. With a deep breath, he brought the tip of the knife to the topmost strand of the web, where it met with the flesh of his palm. The tendons and nerves stretched taut below the mark. He tightened his grip on the knife, steeling himself. A drop of perspiration trickled down the side of his face.
A hand came to rest on his shoulder. For a long time, no one said a word. Through the window, lively hand drums began to play. Abner’s grip on Caradoc’s shoulder gently tightened.
The knife clattered to the floor. Caradoc curled his left hand into a fist and brought it to rest against his brow. A knock came at the door.
“Pardon me, sir,” a servant said, poking his head into the room. “Your carriage is ready.”
Abner nodded. “Thank you, but . . . I think we’ll walk.”
The manservant bowed his head and withdrew. Abner clapped his hand lightly on Caradoc’s arm, then crossed the room and took up his coat draped across a chair. He held it open and stood patiently without a word. They heard the sound of the carriage driving away. Caradoc sat motionless for another minute, then rose and let Abner help him into his coat.
The meeting hall was only a short walk from the mansion. From the courtyard gate they could see party lights glowing in the distance. Music and boisterous laughter carried across the entire town. People made their way down the pavements in high spirits, nodding and tipping their hats to the two Colonists who walked along at a slower pace. Only Abner returned the greetings. When they were alone again, he looked at Caradoc.
“You know . . . when Evering was very young, he would always ask why we couldn’t live in a big house, or go on holidays to the sea. Why he had to help his mother at the cotton mill after school while the other boys ran off to play. He’d say, ‘Why don’t others work as hard as we do?’ And I’d tell him, ‘Because others don’t have the heart for it. They’re not strong enough. Not tough enough. So God chose us to make up for their weakness.’ And then one day, when he was a little older, he said, ‘I understand that, Dad. But sometimes . . . I’d just rather be weak.’”
He snuck another glance at Caradoc’s face.
“I’m not a fool. I know the things you do carry a heavy cost. Greater than any of us can imagine. You’re the toughest man I’ve ever known, Mr. Caradoc, and I’ve always meant to tell you how sorry I am for that.”
Caradoc remained silent but finally lifted his eyes from the road. They walked on until the entrance to the meeting hall came into sight. A line of carriages was parked alongside it. Riva waved to them from the door. Caradoc stopped where the path curved down towards the hall and gazed out at the scene.
“Aren’t you tired, Abner?”
Abner rubbed his chin, recognizing the Spektor’s question. He watched a family pass by on the opposite side of the street. The youngest girl giggled as her parents swung her between their arms as they went.
“Only of myself, sometimes,” he finally answered. “I get tired of my worrying over the pipeworks. My fretting over Evering. My guilt over letting Jeremy and his brothers take a few days’ leave from the factory. So . . . what do we do when we get tired? We sleep, of course. But sleeping isn’t always enough. Then I think, what do I do with a piece of machinery that starts to get overheated or grind its gears a bit too far down?”
Caradoc looked at him, awaiting the answer. Abner nodded.
“You put it aside for a while. You let it rest. You find laughter and song. Good food and drink. That celebration down there, that’s not meant to wipe away yesterday’s troubles. It’s not turning a blind eye. It’s time off from sorrow and grief. Permission to hope that things will be all right again.”
A slight smile lifted the grimness from Caradoc’ face. “So what now? Are you going to force me to have fun?”
“Force a Keyholder to have fun? No. Never. Impossible.” Abner grinned, a twinkle glinting in his eye. “But Isaac Caradoc? Absolutely.”
The meeting hall was the largest building in town, designed to hold every citizen in Harroway. This was fortunate, since nearly every citizen turned up. Filled to capacity, the hall became so warm that windows had to be opened to let in the winter air. Servants floated in and out of side doors to keep the tables constantly full of food and drink. In the very center of the room was a raised platform where a band played with boundless energy. A crowd of people danced around them, cheering and shouting as they went. Ribbons fluttered from the rafters. Silk tapestries shimmered on the walls. The Colonists themselves had been seated at the head table on the far side of the room. Riva led Abner and Caradoc to it.
“There you are!” Simon said above the noise as they arrived. “We were just about to have this changed over to a search party.”
Caradoc jerked a thumb towards the platform. “Shouldn’t you be up there telling jokes?”
“Just look at this ungodly amount of food,” Abner said as he took his chair.
Evering shook his head, his mouth half full of roast beef. “Too bad it ain’t as good as Harriet’s—I mean, Anne's cooking.”
“You’d never know by the way you’re shoveling it in,” Riva said, poking him in the shoulder as she went to take her seat.
Four servants approached from a side door with huge bottles of red wine. As they went down the table filling their glasses, Abner took a sip and shook his head.
“Ugh, that’s strong stuff. You stick to water, Son. And that goes for you, too, little Eddie.”
“What?” Evering protested. “Dad, I am twenty-four.”
“You’re still my son and I’m still your father. Jeremy’s not drinking either.”
“What about Riv—I mean, Charlotte? Why does she get to have some?”
“She’s not my daughter.”
“I’m not your son!” Ink chimed in.
“Don’t change the subject,” Abner replied. “Now hush up. Someone’s speaking.”
The band had gone silent for a moment as Captain Jarius rose to his feet and proposed a toast to the Colonists, then another to the memory of Gwenyth Kingsley. The people raised their glasses. When they had taken their seats again, the Colonists made their own toast to Chester and the Plumsleys. Ink drank dutifully from his water glass for the first half hour of the feast. The rest of the evening, he snuck swallows of wine from Simon’s glass.
It was like old times again. They laughed and teased and ate until they couldn’t eat any more. Simon and Caradoc challenged each other to arm-wrestling and drinking contests, often both at once. Ink and Evering placed bets and egged them on, while Harriet and Riva chided their foolishness but laughed the entire time. Jeremy and Abner spent the first part of the feast talking of practical matters and discussing improvements to be made on Riverfall. This came to a halt when an endless train of desserts arrived at their table, at which time they took it upon themselves to sample each one and decide which was best.
“Uh oh, Evering. Don’t look now,” Riva said with a smirk. “There’s Galena.”
“Oh yes?” Abner said. “I’d love to meet this girl. Which one is she?”
Harriet smiled. “You’re in luck. She’s headed right this way.”
“What? Does Evering have a girlfriend?” Simon said, a little too loudly.
“Shut up! She can hear you!” Evering hissed, turning a shade of bright red and shrinking down in his seat.
Galena approached the table with a broad smile and produced a charming courtesy. “Ladies. Gentlemen. I know I'm hardly the first to say so, but allow me to offer my most sincere gratitude for your selfless actions in service of our town. I daresay they ought to give you Kingsley’s job in light of everything that’s happened. I know I would.”
“That’s kind of you, Galena,” Harriet said. “I hope you didn’t get into trouble with your father for leaving the house.”
“Not at all,” she replied, arching an eyebrow with a pleased look of pride. “After what he'd done, he couldn't so much as raise his voice to me. Anyway, that’s old business. We look to better times now. So, gentlemen, who will indulge me with a dance? Mr. Rawlings?”
“Oh, no. Sorry but I don’t dance.”
“What?” Ink said, glancing over at him. “You sing and you play instruments and you act a fool, but you don’t dance?”
“I would be more than happy to indulge you, Miss,” Abner said, rising from the table to the mortification of his son. “If you wouldn’t object to having such an old man as a partner.”
“I’d certainly never object to one so handsome,” she replied, taking his hand with a smile.
As they moved off to the center of the dance floor, Ink elbowed Evering in the ribs.
“Look at it this way—you can see her every day if she ends up being your step-mother.”
Evering shot him a murderous look.
The next dance began. As soon as the rest of the townspeople saw that Abner had been spoken for, a dozen or more approached the table and invited the others to be their partners. Riva in particular was suddenly quite popular. It seemed that no one objected any longer to having an Entress in their midst. Even Ink found himself with a few offers, though of course he turned them down, insisting he’d done enough to embarrass himself in public. Before long, only he and Caradoc remained at the table. The Keyholder continued to decline invitations long after the dance had begun.
“You know, I've been thinking about something,” Ink said to him. “Every time you find yourself in a bad situation—even when you're just bored or lonely—you could step off to an Otherworld whenever you want. You could get out of this whole mess with that Key of yours, even if it was only for a little while. So couldn't you do that for the rest of us? Take us all to some other place instead of staying on Riverfall? And couldn't you have done it for all the people here when the Spektors came? Just send everyone out of Eriaris?”
Caradoc poured himself another glass of wine. “It's a bit more complicated than that. Keyholders can only take one other person through the Veil at a time. The Keys were designed that way to prevent hosts of people flocking between worlds where they don't belong.”
“But couldn't you just take 'em back again?”
“That's the other complication. Doors open and close all the time in the Veil, which means you're never guaranteed a route back to the place you came from.”
Ink put his elbow on the table and cupped his chin in his hand. “That's another thing. What is the Veil? I've heard it mentioned a lot, but I've never really understood it.”
Caradoc ruminated on the question while sipping his wine. “In the plainest terms, the Veil is the part of the Spirit World which threads through all physical ones. That's why the Spektors—who are creatures of spirit—can pass so easily between them. Personally, I like to think of the Veil as an endless ocean, and all the worlds like ships. The water lifts them up, carries them along, gives them life and movement and purpose. And yet, that is only one small part of the ocean’s function. What we know of it is only what we've seen on the surface. We haven't even begun to plumb its depths.”
Ink folded his arms. “When you put it that way . . . it sounds almost terrifying.”
“It can be. Especially at first. But after you've done your fair share of dives, you get used to being in the water. Sometimes you even look forward to it.”
“But what about Margaret? If the Spektors were in her house, why did you have to cross the Veil at all?”
“Because the Spektors use the Veil not only as a means of travel, but as a hiding place. They had set their anchor in her house—staked their claim on it—but then retreated to an Otherworld where their presence and influence would be harder to detect.”
Ink's gaze fell to the tablecloth as he pondered this. In that time, two servants came to the table, one to clear away the empty dishes, the other to replace them with new ones. When they had both gone again, Ink looked back at Caradoc.
“What about you, then? Using the Key to just get away on your own? Haven't you ever thought about it?”
“Of course. Many times. But I've also made it a personal rule never to run away when I can help it. To face things head on. Besides, Riverfall is where I’m among the only family I have left. It would be unthinkable to leave them now.” He took another sip of wine, then cast a tentative glance at Ink. “Speaking of which . . . I’ve made it a point not to press you on the subject, but the night before we went to Margaret's house, you told Simon that Anthony Revore wasn’t your true name. That you weren’t the lost orphan from Kinsington in the kidnapping notices. But the Spektor in the square called you by that name. And when Coram used it at Mastmarner, you didn’t correct him. You don’t owe me the details or the truth. Your identity is your business. But not once, in all this time, have you mentioned anything about your family. I know you like to keep things close to the vest, but I thought I’d ask—”
“No,” Ink said. “I’m not an orphan.”
Caradoc’s eyes filled with concern. “Where is your family? Do they need help?”
Before Ink could answer, Mr. Castor and his wife broke their dance and paused in front of the table.
“Mr. Rawlings!” he cried. “Mr. Douglas! What are you doing sitting down? You’re missing out on all the fun!”
“Afraid we’re not much for dancing,” Caradoc replied.
“Oh, for shame!” Mrs. Castor teased. “What with all these young ladies wanting a partner! Heartbreakers, the both of you.”
They laughed as they resumed their dance, whirling away. Caradoc looked to Ink again, waiting for the answer to his question. Ink fidgeted in his seat. He couldn’t tell him about his parents. At least, not yet. There would be a danger of unintentionally bringing the Entress and the Colonists together in the search. That was something he couldn’t risk.
“They’re fine,” he answered at last.
Caradoc did not look convinced. The dance soon ended, bringing the others back to the table with flushed cheeks and even higher spirits. Abner clapped his son on the shoulder as he took his seat again.
“First rate girl, that Galena! Very charming indeed! I give my blessing, officially.”
The hall suddenly quieted. Without any warning or announcement, Mayor Kingsley had joined the party. He paused at the door, as if he might turn and walk out again. Judge Hallstein, who stood beside him, whispered a few words and nodded his encouragement. The mayor continued forward, avoiding all eye contact with his shoulders hunched and his head bowed. Ink glanced around the room. The joyous frivolity had turned in an instant to a somber display of cold stares and disapproving murmurs. Whatever love there had been for Kingsley had vanished overnight. Still, Ink couldn't help but feel sorry for him.
When the mayor had gone only a few dozen steps, he stopped and lifted his head.
“I . . . I do not mean to impose upon this happy time. I will not stay long.” He looked at the Colonists, wringing his hands. “I do not have the words to express my regret over my actions. Nor my thankfulness for your efforts to free Harroway. No more, at least, than the meager few I have already attempted.”
He glanced behind him and nodded. Half a dozen servants filed through the entryway carrying small leather pouches.
“This is all I have left to give,” Kingsley continued. “One hundred pieces of silver for each of you. Along with our eternal gratitude.”
The servants gave each Colonist a pouch. Ink’s mouth dropped open at the sheer amount of coins. It was more than he’d ever heard of, much less seen. They could restore what supplies they’d lost. Purchase entirely new sets of costumes and disguises. They would never again need to fear losing a crop to a drought or an early frost. They could have a royal feast every day of their lives for the next ten years, or even buy their own full-sized airship.
“I also want to thank those of you who have sent your prayers and good wishes for my wife and I,” Kingsley said. “For keeping her in your thoughts. As to the circumstances of her passing . . . I would ask that each of you bear it as a warning. Those of us who cling to the safety and comfort of home, surrounded by familiar faces, may think ourselves shielded from the harsher tests and trials of the world. But you must not believe it.” He shook his head, almost in regret, then turned his bleak gaze to the Colonists. “You cannot.”
He glanced around the room once more, then turned and shambled away. As the chatter resumed among the townspeople, Jeremy rose from his seat and sprinted across the hall, catching the mayor just before he reached the door.
